👽 Reddit Scraper — Posts & Comments by Subreddit or Search

Scrape Reddit posts and comments from any subreddit or keyword search — no Reddit API key, no OAuth, no login. This Reddit Scraper uses Reddit's public JSON endpoints to pull structured post data (title, score, author, upvote ratio, comment count, flair, and more) and, optionally, the top comments for each post. Point it at one or more subreddits, add search queries, choose how to sort, and get clean JSON, CSV, or Excel output you can plug into analytics, research, or monitoring workflows.

✨ What you get

• Scrape multiple subreddits and search queries in a single run.
• Sort by hot, new, top, or rising (with a time window for top).
• Optionally fetch the top comments per post.
• One clean record per post — ready for spreadsheets, dashboards, or databases.
• Built-in proxy support (RESIDENTIAL recommended — Reddit rate-limits datacenter IPs).

🚀 Quick start

Paste this into the input editor and hit Start:

{
  "subreddits": ["python"],
  "sort": "hot",
  "maxItems": 10
}

Want comments and a keyword search too?

{
  "subreddits": ["dataisbeautiful", "MachineLearning"],
  "searchQueries": ["large language models"],
  "sort": "top",
  "time": "month",
  "maxItems": 50,
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxComments": 5,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
subreddits	array of strings	["python"]	Subreddit names without r/ (e.g. python, dataisbeautiful).
searchQueries	array of strings	[]	Optional keyword searches run against Reddit's site-wide search.
sort	select	hot	hot, new, top, or rising.
time	select	week	Time window applied only when sort is top: hour, day, week, month, year, all.
maxItems	integer	25	Max posts per source (subreddit or query). Range 1–200.
includeComments	boolean	false	Fetch top comments for each post (slower).
maxComments	integer	10	Max top-level comments per post when includeComments is on. Range 1–100.
proxyConfiguration	proxy	RESIDENTIAL	Apify proxy settings. RESIDENTIAL recommended.

📤 Output

Each row is one Reddit post. Example:

{
  "id": "1abcd23",
  "subreddit": "python",
  "title": "What's your favourite underrated standard library module?",
  "author": "example_user",
  "score": 1423,
  "upvoteRatio": 0.97,
  "numComments": 312,
  "createdUtc": 1718600000.0,
  "createdIso": "2024-06-17T07:33:20+00:00",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/python/comments/1abcd23/...",
  "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/python/comments/1abcd23/whats_your_favourite/",
  "selftext": "I'll start: functools...",
  "flair": "Discussion",
  "over18": false,
  "isVideo": false,
  "domain": "self.python",
  "matchedSource": "r/python",
  "comments": [
    { "author": "commenter1", "body": "itertools, hands down.", "score": 88 }
  ]
}

The comments array is included only when includeComments is enabled. matchedSource tells you which subreddit (r/python) or query (search:large language models) produced the row.

📥 Exporting your data

Results land in the run's dataset. From the Storage tab (or the API) you can export to JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML, RSS, or XML, or fetch them programmatically:

https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/<DATASET_ID>/items?format=csv

💡 Tips

• Use RESIDENTIAL proxies. Reddit aggressively rate-limits datacenter IPs and may return 429. The actor retries 429s automatically, but residential proxies are far more reliable.
• maxItems is per source. Two subreddits with maxItems: 50 can yield up to 100 posts.
• time only matters for top. It's ignored for hot/new/rising.
• Comments cost extra requests. Each post with includeComments triggers an additional fetch, so large runs are slower — keep maxComments modest.
• Pagination is automatic. The actor follows Reddit's after cursor until your maxItems cap is hit.

❓ FAQ

Do I need a Reddit API key? No. This scraper uses Reddit's public .json endpoints, so there's no API key, OAuth, or app registration.

Why am I getting fewer items than maxItems? The source simply may not have that many posts (common for small or quiet subreddits, or narrow searches).

Can I scrape comments only? The actor is post-centric — comments are attached to their parent post when includeComments is enabled.

Is this allowed? You're responsible for complying with Reddit's terms and applicable laws. Scrape responsibly, keep volumes reasonable, and respect user privacy.

Why did some requests get rate-limited? Reddit limits unauthenticated traffic. Residential proxies and modest maxItems keep runs smooth; the actor backs off and retries on 429.

🔎 Use cases

• Track sentiment and trending topics across communities.
• Build datasets for NLP / market research.
• Monitor brand, product, or competitor mentions via search queries.
• Feed dashboards that surface the most-upvoted discussions in your niche.