Lemmy Scraper: Posts, Comments, Communities & Search

Scrape Lemmy, the federated Reddit alternative, for $0.30 per 1,000 posts or comments. Search posts by keyword, pull any community on any server, take a server's front page, and read the comments under a community's posts. Every row has the score, upvotes, downvotes, comment count, author, community, home server and dates. No login, no account, no API key.

{
  "communities": ["technology", "linux@lemmy.ml"],
  "searchKeywords": ["fediverse"],
  "includeComments": true
}

Input	Rows
Community (technology, linux@lemmy.ml or https://lemmy.ml/c/linux)	Up to 200 posts
Search keyword	Up to 200 posts matching it
Front-page feed	Up to 100 posts from all communities
Comments (per community)	Up to 200 comments on the community's posts

Why Use This Scraper?

• Any server, any community. Lemmy is spread over hundreds of servers. Write a community as name@server or paste its link and it is read on its home server, where its full history lives.
• Votes, not just text. Score, upvotes, downvotes and comment counts on every post; score, votes, depth and parent on every comment.
• Sorted the way Lemmy sorts. Hot, active, new, most comments, new comments, or top of the last hour, day, week, month, year or all time.
• Billed once per post. A post found by both a search and its community is delivered and charged once.
• Clean rows. Numbers are numbers, dates are ISO 8601, every row has a type.

Use Cases

• Brand and topic monitoring: follow what the fediverse says about a product, project or company.
• Open-source community research: read Linux, privacy and self-hosting communities, where Lemmy is strongest.
• AI and NLP datasets: posts and threaded comments with vote counts as quality signals.
• Reddit alternative tracking: compare which communities and servers grow, and what reaches the top.
• Link analysis: which outside sites (externalUrl) get shared and upvoted.

How It Works

1. Communities, keywords and the feed are read four at a time. Each request takes about 40 seconds; 200 comments take up to 3 minutes.
2. Plain community names, searches and the feed run on the server you choose (lemmy.world by default, the largest). A community written with its server is read there; if that server does not answer, the copy on your chosen server is used.
3. Comments run after posts, so posts always get the room first under a row or spending limit.
4. Every row is charged as it is delivered, and the run stops cleanly at your spending limit.

Input Configuration

Field	Type	Description
communities	array	technology, linux@lemmy.ml, !linux@lemmy.ml or https://lemmy.ml/c/linux.
searchKeywords	array	Keywords to search in post titles and text.
scrapeFeed	boolean	Also take the server's front page (up to 100 posts).
includeComments	boolean	Also read comments for each community.
maxCommentsPerCommunity	integer	50-200. Default 100.
maxCommentsPerPost	integer	Cap per post. Default 20.
instance	string	Server for search, feed and plain names. Default lemmy.world.
sort	string	hot, active, new, top, most_comments, new_comments. Empty = Lemmy's default.
topRange	string	Window for top: hour … day, week, month, year, all. Default week.
maxPostsPerSource	integer	25-200 per community or keyword (feed: 100). Default 100.
maxItems	integer	Cap on all rows. Default 1,000; free-plan runs return up to 100.

Example input

The week's top posts from two communities, with their comments:

{
  "communities": ["technology", "https://lemmy.ml/c/linux"],
  "sort": "top",
  "topRange": "week",
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerCommunity": 200
}

Newest posts mentioning a keyword on lemmy.ml:

{
  "searchKeywords": ["privacy"],
  "instance": "lemmy.ml",
  "sort": "new",
  "maxPostsPerSource": 200
}

Output Samples

A post (from the lemmy.world front page, 2026-10-26):

{
  "type": "post",
  "postId": 47508220,
  "title": "It used to be a library",
  "body": null,
  "url": "https://lemdro.id/post/47508220",
  "externalUrl": "https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/e9429e72-41b5-4884-90d7-23ef7e104005.png",
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4625bc3b-47cb-4ddc-b12a-4c687dfe7e03.png",
  "community": "memes",
  "communityUrl": "https://sopuli.xyz/c/memes",
  "communityInstance": "sopuli.xyz",
  "author": "cm0002",
  "authorUrl": "https://lemdro.id/u/cm0002",
  "authorInstance": "lemdro.id",
  "score": 1485,
  "upvotes": 1498,
  "downvotes": 13,
  "commentCount": 111,
  "isNsfw": false,
  "isLocked": false,
  "isFeatured": false,
  "postedAt": "2026-10-22T10:10:42.074Z",
  "updatedAt": null,
  "queriedInstance": "lemmy.world",
  "source": "feed",
  "sourceInput": "lemmy.world",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-26T14:42:20.835Z"
}

A comment (from linux@lemmy.ml):

{
  "type": "comment",
  "commentId": 28425410,
  "text": "2027 year of the Linux car",
  "author": "standarduser",
  "authorUrl": "https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/standarduser",
  "authorInstance": "lemmy.dbzer0.com",
  "score": 214,
  "upvotes": 214,
  "downvotes": 0,
  "depth": 1,
  "parentCommentId": null,
  "isDeleted": false,
  "postUrl": "https://lemmy.world/post/53335678",
  "postTitle": "Where there's a will...",
  "community": "linux",
  "postedAt": "2026-10-19T16:57:11.791Z",
  "sourceInput": "linux@lemmy.ml"
}

Key Output Fields

Field	Meaning
type	post or comment
url	The post on the server it was made on
externalUrl	The link a post shares (article, image)
score, upvotes, downvotes	Net score and the votes behind it
communityInstance, authorInstance	The home servers of the community and the author
source, sourceInput	Where a post came from: community, search or feed, and the input that found it
depth, parentCommentId	Where a comment sits in its thread (1 = top level)

FAQ

How many posts can I get from one community or keyword? Up to 200 per community or keyword, 100 from the feed. The data source gives no further pages. For more, combine sorts (for example new and top of month) in separate runs, or search more specific keywords.

Does search cover all of Lemmy? It searches everything the chosen server knows about. On lemmy.world that is most active communities, but not a full search of every server.

Can I get the comments of one specific post? No. Comments are read per community: the community's posts in your sort order, with up to maxCommentsPerPost from each.

Why is postId missing on some posts? Posts made on PieFed servers carry no Lemmy id; the number is read from the link where it has one. url is always set.

A small community returned only a few posts. It returns what it has: for example a community with 5 posts gives 5 rows, and top of week gives only that week's posts.

What happens with a misspelled community? It is reported in the log and skipped, and nothing is charged for it.

Do I need an account? No.

Pricing

Event	When	Price
Actor start	Once per run (per GB of memory, 256 MB default)	$0.005
Post	Each post delivered	$0.0003
Comment	Each comment delivered	$0.0003
Source	Once per keyword, community, front page or comment batch that returns rows (empty ones are free)	$0.002

Example: 10 communities with 200 posts and 200 comments each = 4,000 rows × $0.0003 + 20 sources × $0.002 + $0.005 = $1.245.

Support

Found a bug or need a field? Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab and include the run link.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This actor reads public Lemmy content. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Lemmy or any Lemmy server. You are responsible for using the data in line with each server's rules and the laws that apply to you, including data-protection law where rows name people. Posts and comments belong to their authors.

SEO Keywords

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