Reddit MCP Server — a Reddit API Alternative for Claude, Cursor & ChatGPT

Give your AI assistant live Reddit access. This Actor runs as a hosted MCP server (Model Context Protocol): connect Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, VS Code or any MCP client and it can search Reddit, browse subreddits, and read post comment threads — with no Reddit API keys, no OAuth app, and no rate‑limit paperwork. A drop‑in Reddit API alternative built for AI agents.

Apify hosts it, authenticates it with your Apify token, and bills it per tool call — you don't run or host anything.

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🧰 Tools

Six tools, all returning clean, typed JSON — ready for an LLM to reason over.

Tool	What it does	Key arguments
search_reddit	Search Reddit posts by keyword — site‑wide or within one subreddit.	query (required), subreddit, sort (relevance/hot/top/new/comments), time (hour…all), limit (1–100)
search_comments	Keyword‑search Reddit comments — scans the most relevant threads and returns the actual comments that match, ranked by score. Great for real quotes / voice‑of‑customer.	query (required), subreddit, sort, time, limit (1–100)
fetch_subreddit	Fetch a subreddit feed sorted by hot / new / top / rising / controversial. Great for monitoring a community.	subreddit (required), sort, time, limit (1–100)
fetch_post_comments	Fetch a post + its comments from a post URL or permalink.	url (required), limit (1–200)
get_subreddit_info	Get subreddit metadata: name, title, full description, creation date, NSFW flag and link.	subreddit (required)
find_similar_subreddits	Discover communities related to one or more seed subreddits, ranked by overlap.	subreddits (required, list), limit (1–50)

Higher limits than most Reddit MCPs — search_reddit/fetch_subreddit return up to 100 posts and fetch_post_comments up to 200 comments per call.

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🔌 Connect it

This Actor runs in Standby mode and exposes an MCP endpoint at /mcp over the Streamable HTTP transport. Point your MCP client at the Actor's Standby URL and authenticate with your Apify API token as a bearer token.

Add this to your MCP client config (Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, …):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "reddit": {
      "url": "https://<YOUR-STANDBY-URL>/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" }
    }
  }
}

• Your Standby URL is shown on the Actor's page once you enable Standby (looks like https://<user>--reddit-mcp-server.apify.actor).
• Your Apify API token is under Settings → Integrations in the Apify Console.

That's it — your assistant will discover the three tools automatically and pick the right one.

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💬 Example prompts

Once connected, just ask your assistant naturally:

• “Search Reddit for people frustrated with existing CRM tools — give me quotes and upvote counts.”
• “What's hot in r/SaaS this week?”
• “Read the comments on this thread and summarise the main complaints: <post URL>.”
• “Find the top 20 posts in r/webdev this month and cluster them by topic.”
• “Which note‑taking apps do people on Reddit recommend most, and why?”

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📦 Example tool calls & output

search_reddit

{ "query": "best note taking app", "limit": 3 }

{
  "query": "best note taking app",
  "subreddit": null,
  "sort": "relevance",
  "time": "all",
  "count": 3,
  "posts": [
    {
      "id": "1a2b3c",
      "title": "Tested 6 of the best note taking apps over one semester",
      "author": "study_nerd",
      "subreddit": "ProductivityApps",
      "score": 15,
      "numComments": 8,
      "createdAt": "2026-05-14T18:22:11.000Z",
      "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductivityApps/comments/1a2b3c/...",
      "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductivityApps/comments/1a2b3c/...",
      "over18": false
    }
  ]
}

fetch_subreddit

{ "subreddit": "SaaS", "sort": "hot", "limit": 3 }

Returns the same posts[] shape as above, in feed order — ideal for monitoring a community.

fetch_post_comments

{ "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1u0z4vz/...", "limit": 4 }

{
  "post": { "title": "New rule banning a SaaS product category", "score": 525, "numComments": 265 },
  "commentCount": 4,
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": "kd93jf2",
      "author": "founder_mike",
      "body": "Honestly this is overdue, the promo spam was out of control…",
      "score": 42,
      "createdAt": "2026-06-30T09:12:03.000Z",
      "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/SaaS/comments/1u0z4vz/.../kd93jf2/",
      "numReplies": 3
    }
  ]
}

search_comments

{ "query": "migrating from Webpack to Vite", "limit": 4 }

{
  "query": "migrating from Webpack to Vite",
  "count": 4,
  "comments": [
    {
      "author": "frontend_dan",
      "body": "We migrated a bunch of React repos from Webpack to rspack — near drop-in…",
      "score": 3,
      "subreddit": "webdev",
      "postTitle": "Anyone actually moved off Webpack?",
      "postPermalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/…"
    }
  ]
}

get_subreddit_info

{ "subreddit": "LocalLLaMA" }

{
  "name": "LocalLLaMA",
  "title": "LocalLLaMA",
  "description": "A subreddit to discuss about Llama, the family of large language models…",
  "subscribers": null,
  "createdAt": "2023-03-10T21:35:04.000Z",
  "over18": false,
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/",
  "id": "t5_81eyvm"
}

Reddit hides subscriber / active‑user counts for logged‑out access, so those fields are returned when available and null otherwise.

find_similar_subreddits

{ "subreddits": ["datascience", "machinelearning"], "limit": 5 }

{
  "seeds": ["datascience", "machinelearning"],
  "count": 5,
  "subreddits": [
    { "name": "learnmachinelearning", "title": "Learn Machine Learning", "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/learnmachinelearning/" },
    { "name": "bigdata", "title": "big data", "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/bigdata/" },
    { "name": "DataScienceJobs", "title": "Data Science & Machine Learning Jobs!", "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/DataScienceJobs/" }
  ]
}

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✅ Why use it

• No Reddit API. Reddit's official API is gated, app‑registered and rate‑limited; this reads public data and needs no keys and no OAuth app.
• Built for agents. Clean, typed tools with descriptions LLMs understand, so your assistant picks the right one and gets structured JSON back.
• Reliable IPs. Requests are routed through residential proxies, so Reddit doesn't block them.
• Pay per call. Billed per tool call — no subscription, no idle server cost, nothing to host.
• Works everywhere. Standard Streamable HTTP MCP transport — Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, VS Code, Windsurf, or your own agent.

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🎯 Great for

• Voice‑of‑customer & market research — surface real complaints and feature requests in your niche.
• SaaS / product idea validation — find pain points people are actively discussing.
• Community monitoring — track a subreddit for new posts on your brand or topic.
• Content & SEO research — see what questions and threads get traction.

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⚙️ Notes & limitations

• Read‑only, public data only — no posting, voting, or private/DM access, and no login.
• Reddit search returns roughly the most recent/relevant few hundred results per query — it is not a full historical archive.
• Very high call volumes may hit Reddit rate limits; requests retry with back‑off.

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This Actor accesses only publicly available Reddit data and performs no login or private‑account access. You are responsible for using the output in compliance with Reddit's terms and applicable laws. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Reddit, Inc. “Reddit” is a trademark of its respective owner.

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🔎 SEO keywords

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