# StackOverflow Questions & Discussions Scraper (`litezero/stackoverflow-questions-scraper`) Actor

Search and scrape StackOverflow questions, answer counts, scores, accepted answer status, tags, and author reputation for technical research and error tracking.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/litezero/stackoverflow-questions-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [LiteZero](https://apify.com/litezero) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, AI, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.84 / 1,000 item scrapeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## 🥞 StackOverflow Questions & Discussions Scraper

Search and extract **StackOverflow** programming questions, vote scores, answer counts, accepted answers, technology tags, and author reputation metrics in bulk.

Engineered for developer relations (DevRel), error diagnostic bots, LLM code assistants, and technology market share tracking.

***

### 🥊 Why This Actor Beats the Competition

| Feature | 🥞 This Actor (`litezero`) | 🐢 Headless Browser Scrapers | 🔒 StackExchange Data Dumps |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Speed** | ⚡ **< 1.0 second / query** | 🐌 15–20 seconds / page | ⏳ Gigabyte downloads, months stale |
| **Pricing** | 💰 **$1.20 / 1,000 questions** (Free Platform Usage) | 💸 High RAM/CPU cost ($8+/run) | 💾 Expensive multi-GB cloud storage |
| **Freshness** | 🔄 Real-time live questions | 🚫 Cloudflare CAPTCHAs | 🗓️ Updated only quarterly |
| **Data Completeness** | 📦 Tags + Reputation + Accepted Answer + Dates | ⚠️ Fragile DOM parsing | 🧩 Complex multi-table relational schema |
| **Setup Friction** | 🚀 **Zero API keys required** | 🛠️ Proxy rotation & browser setup | 💻 Requires local PostgreSQL server |

***

### 🛠️ Step-by-Step: How to Use

#### Method 1: Apify Web Console (No-Code)

1. Enter your search query (e.g. `python asyncio`, `docker exit code 137`, `react hydration error`).
2. Optional: Filter by specific tags (e.g. `python`, `typescript`, `docker`).
3. Select sorting (`Highest Votes`, `Recent Activity`, `Newest Created`, or `Relevance`).
4. Click **Start** and export results to JSON, CSV, or Excel.

#### Method 2: Python SDK

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run_input = {
    "query": "asyncio task exception was never retrieved",
    "tagged": "python",
    "sort": "votes",
    "maxResults": 20
}

run = client.actor("litezero/stackoverflow-questions-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"[{item['score']} votes] {item['title']} ({item['answer_count']} answers)")
```

#### Method 3: Node.js SDK

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('litezero/stackoverflow-questions-scraper').call({
    query: 'CORS policy preflight',
    tagged: 'javascript',
    maxResults: 15
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Retrieved ${items.length} questions.`);
```

#### Method 4: REST API / cURL

```bash
curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/litezero~stackoverflow-questions-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "kubernetes pod crashloopbackoff", "maxResults": 10}'
```

***

### 📥 Input Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|---|:---:|:---:|:---:|---|
| `query` | `string` | **Yes** | `"python asyncio"` | Search keywords or error message. |
| `tagged` | `string` | No | `"python"` | Semicolon-delimited tag filter (e.g. `python`, `docker`). |
| `sort` | `string` | No | `"votes"` | Sort order: `votes`, `activity`, `creation`, `relevance`. |
| `maxResults` | `integer`| No | `20` | Max questions to retrieve (1–100). |

***

### 📤 Output Data Dictionary & Sample JSON

```json
{
  "question_id": 48152528,
  "title": "multiprocessing vs multithreading vs asyncio",
  "link": "https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48152528/multiprocessing-vs-multithreading-vs-asyncio",
  "is_answered": true,
  "view_count": 142050,
  "answer_count": 8,
  "score": 420,
  "tags": [
    "python",
    "multithreading",
    "multiprocessing",
    "python-asyncio"
  ],
  "owner_name": "tech_lead_alex",
  "owner_reputation": 18450,
  "owner_user_id": 829104,
  "owner_profile_url": "https://stackoverflow.com/users/829104/tech-lead-alex",
  "creation_date_iso": "2018-01-08T12:00:00.000Z",
  "last_activity_date_iso": "2024-03-12T15:20:00.000Z",
  "accepted_answer_id": 48152700,
  "scraped_at": "2026-10-04T06:00:00.000Z"
}
```

***

### 💡 Top Commercial Use Cases

1. **DevRel & Community Monitoring:** Track emerging developer questions, confusion points, and missing documentation for developer tools and libraries.
2. **Automated Error Diagnostic Bots:** Match runtime error stack traces to top-voted StackOverflow solutions inside IDEs and CI/CD pipelines.
3. **LLM Technical Grounding:** Build specialized coding RAG pipelines with high-reputation community answers and code snippets.

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Search keywords or error messages in question titles/body.

## `tagged` (type: `string`):

Filter by specific tag or semicolon-delimited tags (e.g. 'python;asyncio' or 'docker').

## `sort` (type: `string`):

Order questions by votes, activity, creation date, or relevance.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of questions to retrieve (1 to 100).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "python asyncio",
  "tagged": "python",
  "sort": "votes",
  "maxResults": 20
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "query": "python asyncio",
    "tagged": "python",
    "sort": "votes",
    "maxResults": 20
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("litezero/stackoverflow-questions-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "query": "python asyncio",
    "tagged": "python",
    "sort": "votes",
    "maxResults": 20,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("litezero/stackoverflow-questions-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "python asyncio",
  "tagged": "python",
  "sort": "votes",
  "maxResults": 20
}' |
apify call litezero/stackoverflow-questions-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,litezero/stackoverflow-questions-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/JeFfYkxKKBLiVHqO2/builds/2tM1b66PXl6vnHKUK/openapi.json