Douban Book Ratings Scraper

What does Douban Book Ratings & Reviews Scraper do?

Douban Book Ratings & Reviews Scraper searches Douban's book catalog for the terms you give it, or reads the exact book URLs you provide, and returns each book's rating out of 10, total vote count, the percent of readers giving each star rating (5 down to 1), full publishing details (author, translator, publisher, publish date, ISBN, page count, binding, price) and - if you ask for them - real reader reviews with the reviewer's name, their own rating and the review text.

Why use Douban Book Ratings & Reviews Scraper?

• Covers China's largest book-ratings community - ratings Goodreads and Amazon don't have for Chinese-language titles.
• Full publishing metadata (ISBN, publisher, pages, price) alongside the rating, not just a score.
• Star-percent breakdown (5-star down to 1-star), not only an average.
• Real reader reviews with names, per-review ratings and useful-vote counts.
• Works by search term or by exact book URL/ID - no need to find the URL yourself.
• No account or API key.

What makes this different

Most book-data tools only cover English-language catalogs. This Actor reads Douban - the reference ratings source for Chinese-language books - and returns the same depth of detail (star breakdown, full metadata, reviews) in one structured call.

Who can use the Douban Book Scraper and how?

• Publishers and literary agents: Check how a title or translation is received by Chinese readers before a licensing decision.
• Book recommendation apps: Pull ratings and metadata for Chinese-language catalogs you can't source from Western APIs.
• Researchers: Collect rating distributions and reader sentiment at scale for literary studies.
• Translators and publishers: Monitor reception of a specific translated edition over time.
• Price trackers: Track a book's listed price and edition details.
• Content and SEO sites: Source accurate book metadata and ratings for a Chinese-book review site.

How it works

1. Your input — add search terms, exact book URLs, or both
2. The Actor collects it — the Actor reads Douban's book search and detail pages and (optionally) the comments page for each book
3. Your output — you get one row per book, with reviews nested inside if requested

What data can you extract?

The dataset has 18 fields per row:

Field	Type	Description
title	string	Book title.
subjectId	string	Douban's internal book ID.
url	string	The book's Douban page.
rating	number	Average rating out of 10.
ratingCount	number	Total number of ratings.
author	string	Author name.
translator	string	Translator name, when the book is a translation.
publisher	string	Publisher.
publishDate	string	Publication date as shown on Douban.
isbn	string	ISBN.
pages	number	Page count.
binding	string	Binding type, e.g. paperback or hardcover.
price	string	Listed price as shown on Douban.
star5Percent	number	Percent of ratings that gave 5 stars.
star1Percent	number	Percent of ratings that gave 1 star.
description	string	Book summary.
imageUrl	string	Cover image URL.
reviews	array	Reader reviews with reviewer name, rating, useful votes and text.

How to use Douban Book Ratings & Reviews Scraper

1. Open the Actor and go to the Input tab.
2. Add one or more search terms under Search Queries, and/or exact book URLs under Book URLs.
3. Optionally set filters and a Max results limit.
4. Click Start. A default run finishes in under a minute.
5. Open the Output tab, then download the dataset or connect it to your tools.

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
searchQueries	array	No	["围城"]	Book titles, authors or keywords to search for on Douban, e.g. 乡村医生 or a pinyin/English title.
bookUrls	array	No	[]	Specific Douban book page URLs (or plain subject IDs) to scrape directly - copy these straight from book.douban.com. When set, this is used instead of Search queries.
maxItemsPerQuery	integer	No	10	Maximum number of books to return per search query. Set to 0 for unlimited.
includeDetails	boolean	No	true	Fetch each book's own detail page for author, publisher, ISBN, price and the full rating breakdown, not just what the search result already shows.
includeComments	boolean	No	false	Also fetch each book's most useful short reviews.
maxComments	integer	No	10	Only used when Include reviews is on.
proxyConfiguration	object	No	{"useApifyProxy":false}	Optional. The data is public and works without a proxy.

Output Data

Each row is one book: its Douban rating, vote count, star-percent breakdown, full publishing metadata, and - if requested - a list of real reader reviews.

A real dataset item:

{
  "type": "book",
  "subjectId": "11524204",
  "title": "围城",
  "url": "https://book.douban.com/subject/11524204/",
  "rating": 9.3,
  "ratingCount": 115399,
  "castInfo": "钱锺书 / 人民文学出版社 / 1991",
  "description": "《围城》是一幅栩栩如生的世井百态图，人生的酸甜苦辣千般滋味均在其中得到了淋漓尽致的体现。钱钟书先生将自己的语言天才并入极其渊博的知识，再添加上一些讽刺主义的...",
  "imageUrl": "https://img3.doubanio.com/view/subject/s/public/s11276847.jpg",
  "query": "围城",
  "author": "钱锺书",
  "translator": null,
  "publisher": "人民文学出版社",
  "producer": null,
  "publishDate": "1991-2-1",
  "isbn": "9787020090006",
  "pages": 362,
  "binding": "精装",
  "price": "39.00元",
  "originalTitle": null,
  "series": null,
  "star5Percent": 67.5,
  "star4Percent": 27.4,
  "star3Percent": 4.6,
  "star2Percent": 0.4,
  "star1Percent": 0.2,
  "summary": "《围城》是一幅栩栩如生的世井百态图，人生的酸甜苦辣千般滋味均在其中得到了淋漓尽致的体现。钱钟书先生将自己的语言天才并入极其渊博的知识，再添加上一些讽刺主义的幽默调料，以一书而定江山。《围城》显示给我们一个真正的聪明人是怎样看人生，又怎样用所有作家都必得使用的文字来表述自己的“观…",
  "reviews": [
    {
      "type": "review",
      "subjectId": "11524204",
      "commentId": "1272114856",
      "reviewerName": "江户川柯镇恶",
      "reviewerUrl": "https://www.douban.com/people/woshilixu004/",
      "rating": 4,
      "usefulVotes": 9128,
      "reviewTime": "2018-04-08 23:03:30",
      "content": "看着心累，方鸿渐就应该跟赵辛楣搞基。"
    },
    {
      "type": "review",
      "subjectId": "11524204",
      "commentId": "706763315",
      "reviewerName": "二筒",
      "reviewerUrl": "https://www.douban.com/people/ertongertong/",
      "rating": 5,
      "usefulVotes": 4093,
      "reviewTime": "2014-02-23 01:01:00",
      "content": "倒是觉得书中词句、比喻精妙，让人体会到中文之美"
    },
    {
      "type": "review",
      "subjectId": "11524204",
      "commentId": "702501983",
      "reviewerName": "成知默",
      "reviewerUrl": "https://www.douban.com/people/chengzhimo/",
      "rating": 5,
      "usefulVotes": 2859,
      "reviewTime": "2013-07-10 10:52:56",
      "content": "时隔多年重读，钟书先生的幽默、老辣、聪明、刻薄仍让人拍案激赏。无论是方鸿渐，还是孙柔嘉，抑或苏文纨，他们的寻常人生，不过就像苏小姐的爱情，起初因为“看得太名贵了，不肯随便施与”，及至遭遇现实的损耗，就只能迅速缴械、自怅自悔了，如此过了十几年，恐怕也只能借年轻人的生气来温暖自己的衰朽。深于一切语言、一切啼笑，“围城”内外，饱含对人生的讽刺和感伤。"
    }
  ],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-16T05:21:29.793Z"
}

Usage Examples

Search by title

{
  "searchQueries": [
    "围城"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerQuery": 10,
  "includeDetails": true,
  "includeComments": false
}

Exact book URL with reviews

{
  "bookUrls": [
    "https://book.douban.com/subject/11524204/"
  ],
  "includeDetails": true,
  "includeComments": true,
  "maxComments": 10
}

Tips for Best Results

• Use exact book URLs when you already know them - it skips search and is faster.
• Turn off Include Reviews if you only need the rating and metadata - it's faster and uses fewer results.
• Default is 5 results for a fast test. Set the max to 0 to return everything available.

Known Limitations

• Douban occasionally rate-limits very large search volumes; space out very large jobs.
• Some older or less-common titles may be missing certain metadata fields (ISBN, price) if Douban itself never recorded them.

Integrations

Run it from the Apify API, on a schedule, or from a webhook. Send results straight to Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, Slack or your own database with Apify's built-in integrations.

Export Formats

Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML table or RSS from the Output tab or the API.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does it need a Douban login?

No. The Actor reads public search, book and comments pages and needs no account or key.

Can I search in English?

Search works best with the Chinese title, since that's what Douban indexes, but an exact book URL always works regardless of language.

How many reviews can I get per book?

Up to the Max Comments value you set, taken from the book's most useful reviews as ranked by Douban.

Do I need an account or login?

No. The Actor reads public data and needs no account or key.

Am I charged for failed runs or empty results?

You are only charged for results that are actually written to the dataset.

Can I run it on a schedule?

Yes. Create a Task with your input and add a schedule in Apify Console. With monitor mode on, each scheduled run returns only what changed since the previous one.

Enterprise and custom work

Need higher volumes, a custom output schema, dedicated scheduling or a no-breaking-changes commitment for a production pipeline? Open an issue on the Actor page and describe your use case. Bulk terms and custom builds are available.

Support

Questions or a missing field? Open an issue from the Issues tab on this Actor's page and it will be looked at.

Legal / Responsible Use

You are responsible for using the data in line with the source's terms and applicable law. The Actor collects publicly available data only and is not affiliated with the source.