Reddit Post & Comment Scraper - Free Subreddit Data Extractor (Alternative to Reddit API, Pushshift, Arctic Shift)

Scrape Reddit posts and comments from any subreddit or thread URL -- titles, scores, authors, awards, flairs, and full comment trees. No Reddit API key, no OAuth, no developer application. The best free alternative to Reddit Data API ($0.24/1K calls), Pushshift (discontinued), Arctic Shift, and SocialGrep.

Who Is This For?

• Content marketers -- Find trending topics, popular questions, and content gaps in your niche subreddits
• Market researchers -- Analyze sentiment, feature requests, and pain points from product-related subreddits
• SEO specialists -- Discover high-engagement keywords and questions people are asking on Reddit
• Data scientists -- Build NLP datasets from Reddit comments for sentiment analysis and topic modeling
• Product managers -- Monitor user feedback, feature requests, and bug reports on product subreddits
• Competitive intelligence -- Track competitor mentions, comparisons, and user sentiment across subreddits

Pricing -- Free to Start

Tier	Cost	What You Get
Free trial	$0	Apify free tier includes monthly compute credits
Pay per result	~$2.00 / 1,000 posts	Subreddit scraping with comments
vs. Reddit API	Saves $0.24/1K calls	No OAuth, no application, no rate limits
vs. Pushshift	Still works	Pushshift was discontinued in 2023

Quick Start (3 Steps)

1. Click "Try for free" on this Actor's page in Apify Store
2. Enter subreddits (e.g., ["webdev", "javascript"]) or paste post URLs
3. Click "Start" and get Reddit data as JSON, CSV, or Excel

Features

• Subreddit scraping: Extract posts from any public subreddit (hot, new, top, rising)
• Post detail scraping: Scrape individual posts with full comment trees
• Rich metadata: Title, score, upvote ratio, author, flair, awards, NSFW flag, pinned status
• Comment extraction: Top-level comments with author, score, and OP indicator
• Time filters: Filter top posts by hour, day, week, month, year, or all time
• No API key: Uses Reddit's public JSON endpoints
• Retry & rate limiting: Automatic retries with configurable delays

Input

Field	Type	Description	Default
subreddits	array	Subreddit names without r/ (e.g. ["webdev", "javascript"])	--
postUrls	array	Direct Reddit post URLs to scrape with comments	--
sortBy	string	"hot", "new", "top", "rising"	"hot"
timeFilter	string	Time range for top sort: "hour", "day", "week", "month", "year", "all"	"week"
maxPostsPerSubreddit	integer	Max posts per subreddit (1-100)	25
includeComments	boolean	Extract top-level comments for each post	false
maxCommentsPerPost	integer	Max comments per post (1-50)	10
delayBetweenRequestsMs	integer	Delay between requests in ms (min 1000)	2000

Example Input -- Subreddit Scraping

{
  "subreddits": ["webdev", "javascript", "reactjs"],
  "sortBy": "top",
  "timeFilter": "week",
  "maxPostsPerSubreddit": 25,
  "includeComments": false
}

Example Input -- Post with Comments

{
  "postUrls": [
    "https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/abc123/best_frameworks_2024/"
  ],
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 20
}

Example Input -- Market Research

{
  "subreddits": ["SaaS", "startups", "entrepreneur"],
  "sortBy": "top",
  "timeFilter": "month",
  "maxPostsPerSubreddit": 50,
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxCommentsPerPost": 5
}

Output

{
  "id": "1abc2de",
  "title": "What's the best JS framework in 2024?",
  "author": "webdev_user",
  "subreddit": "webdev",
  "score": 1247,
  "upvoteRatio": 0.94,
  "numComments": 384,
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1abc2de/...",
  "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/1abc2de/...",
  "selfText": "I've been comparing React, Vue, and Svelte...",
  "flair": "Discussion",
  "awards": 5,
  "createdUtc": "2024-01-15T08:30:00.000Z",
  "isNsfw": false,
  "isPinned": false,
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": "k5f6g7h",
      "author": "senior_dev",
      "body": "React is still the safe bet for most teams...",
      "score": 523,
      "createdUtc": "2024-01-15T09:15:00.000Z",
      "isOp": false,
      "awards": 2
    }
  ],
  "scrapedAt": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Real-World Use Cases

1. Content Research for Blog Posts

Scrape top posts from niche subreddits to find the most discussed topics. Use titles and comments as inspiration for blog articles and YouTube videos.

2. Product Feedback Mining

Monitor your product's subreddit for feature requests, bug reports, and user sentiment. Schedule weekly runs and export to Google Sheets for product team review.

3. SEO Keyword Discovery

Extract post titles from relevant subreddits. Analyze the language users actually use when asking questions -- these become long-tail keyword opportunities.

4. Competitive Intelligence

Track competitor mentions across industry subreddits. Compare sentiment and feature discussions to inform your product roadmap.

5. Academic NLP Dataset

Build labeled datasets from subreddit comments for sentiment analysis, topic classification, and language model fine-tuning.

FAQ

Q: Can I scrape private subreddits? A: No. Only public subreddits are accessible.

Q: What about Reddit's API pricing? A: This Actor uses Reddit's public JSON endpoints, not the official API. No API key or payment required.

Q: How many posts can I scrape per run? A: Up to 100 per subreddit, multiple subreddits per run. For large-scale scraping, use multiple runs.

Q: Will Reddit block me? A: The Actor includes rate limiting. Use Apify's proxy pool for consistent access with large batches.

Notes & Limitations

• Public subreddits only: Private and quarantined subreddits are not accessible.
• JSON endpoints: Uses Reddit's .json endpoint (old.reddit.com). No OAuth required.
• Rate limiting: 2s+ delay between requests. Reddit may throttle aggressive scraping.
• Comment depth: Extracts top-level comments only. Nested reply trees are not included.
• NSFW content: Posts flagged as NSFW include the isNsfw: true field.
• For research purposes: Use in compliance with Reddit's Terms of Service.