Slashdot Scraper — Tech News Stories & Comment Counts

Slashdot Scraper turns public Slashdot pages into structured story records: title, Slashdot link, original source link and domain, posted time, department, topic, comment count and the story summary. It costs USD 7.69 per 1,000 stories on the FREE tier (USD 0.007687 per story) plus a start fee of about USD 0.006, so the 10-story Console example costs about USD 0.08.

It is built for tech-news monitoring, media and trend research, newsletter curation, datasets for AI and NLP work, and agents that need a clean feed of what Slashdot is covering.

What Slashdot data does the scraper return?

It returns one record per unique story, de-duplicated by Slashdot story ID across all pages in the run.

Field	What it means
storyId	Slashdot story ID, for example 186453264
title	Story headline
url	Slashdot story URL
sourceUrl, sourceDomain	Original article the story links to, and its domain
author	Slashdot editor who posted the story, for example BeauHD or EditorDavid
postedAt	Posted time as Slashdot prints it, for example on Sunday October 25, 2026 @04:42PM
department	Slashdot's "from the … dept." tag
topic	Topic label such as AI, Encryption or The Military
commentCount	Number of comments on the story
summary	Visible story summary text
storyBody	Same text when includeStoryBody is on (full body on a direct story URL), otherwise null
tags	Story topic tags such as ai; section and search pages carry the primary topic, a story URL carries all of them
section, searchKeyword	Section or keyword that produced the record
scrapedAt	Extraction time (ISO 8601)

The OUTPUT key-value record lists stories collected, result events charged, pages visited and warnings.

How do I scrape Slashdot sections, older pages and searches?

Paste the pages you want into startUrls. Each Slashdot front or section page holds 15 stories, and the Actor follows the Older link until maxResults or maxPages is reached.

• A section: https://tech.slashdot.org/, https://science.slashdot.org/, https://news.slashdot.org/ or the main page https://slashdot.org/.
• Older stories: raise maxPages. The Actor pages through ?page=1, ?page=2 and so on, and you can also list such page URLs yourself.
• One story: a URL like https://slashdot.org/story/26/10/25/2040212/... returns that story with its full visible body.
• A keyword search: put linux or artificial intelligence in searchKeywords, or a Slashdot search URL such as https://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=artificial+intelligence in startUrls. A search page held 20 matching stories in a 2026-10-27 test, with titles, links, dates, topics and comment counts but no summary.

Latest 45 tech stories (three pages):

{
  "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://tech.slashdot.org/" }],
  "maxResults": 45,
  "maxPages": 3
}

Without startUrls, the Actor reads each entry in sections and searchKeywords and follows their Older pages, for example { "sections": ["tech", "science", "yro"], "maxResults": 45 }. With both empty it reads tech. maxPages (1–50, default 5) caps the pages visited; maxResults (1–500, default 50) caps stories. URLs outside slashdot.org are ignored with a warning.

Is there a Slashdot RSS or API alternative?

Slashdot publishes RSS feeds but no public data API. This Actor gives you JSON, CSV or Excel with fields a feed reader does not separate out, such as the original source domain, department, topic and comment count, and it runs on a schedule or from the Apify API.

When should I use it, and when not?

Use it when you need:

• a daily or hourly export of Slashdot tech, science or policy stories;
• the original source links behind each story for media analysis;
• comment counts to see which stories drew discussion;
• story text for summarisation or classification.

Do not use it when you need:

• the comment threads themselves (only the count is returned);
• headlines from many publishers: use Google News Scraper or Techmeme Scraper;
• the full text of the linked source article: use Smart Article Extractor on sourceUrl.

Use it from an AI assistant

Slashdot Scraper works from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client through Apify's MCP server. Add it with https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=muhammadafzal/slashdot-scraper, then ask, for example: "Get today's Slashdot science stories and list the most-commented ones with their original sources."

Run it with the API

JavaScript:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('muhammadafzal/slashdot-scraper').call({
    startUrls: [{ url: 'https://tech.slashdot.org/' }],
    maxResults: 15,
    maxPages: 1,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python (apify-client 3.x):

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("muhammadafzal/slashdot-scraper").call(
    run_input={"sections": ["science"], "maxResults": 15, "includeStoryBody": False}
)
items = client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).list_items().items
print(items)

What does the output look like?

Two records from the tech section on 2026-10-26, summaries shortened (author and tags as the current build returns them):

[
  {
    "storyId": "186453264",
    "title": "AI Delivers 'Zero Financial Payoff' To Most Companies, Economist Says",
    "url": "https://slashdot.org/story/26/10/25/2040212/ai-delivers-zero-financial-payoff-to-most-companies-economist-says",
    "sourceUrl": "https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/25/ai-delivers-zero-financial-payoff-to-most-companies-according-to-apollo-economist/",
    "sourceDomain": "techcrunch.com",
    "author": "EditorDavid",
    "postedAt": "on Sunday October 25, 2026 @04:42PM",
    "department": "show-me-the-money",
    "topic": "AI",
    "commentCount": 51,
    "summary": "\"Despite massive investments and widespread hype around AI, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech,\" writes the chief economist at ...",
    "storyBody": "\"Despite massive investments and widespread hype around AI, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff ...",
    "tags": ["ai"],
    "section": "tech",
    "searchKeyword": null,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-26T12:20:55.210Z"
  },
  {
    "storyId": "186447954",
    "title": "Free Software Foundation Hosts Free 'Encryptfest' Event on Sunday",
    "url": "https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/10/25/0526257/free-software-foundation-hosts-free-encryptfest-event-on-sunday",
    "sourceUrl": "https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/2026-encryptfest",
    "sourceDomain": "fsf.org",
    "author": "EditorDavid",
    "postedAt": "on Sunday October 25, 2026 @12:30PM",
    "department": "join-us-now",
    "topic": "Encryption",
    "commentCount": 11,
    "summary": "The Free Software Foundation's \"EncryptFest\" today covers both encryption and privacy. ...",
    "storyBody": "The Free Software Foundation's \"EncryptFest\" today covers both encryption and privacy. ...",
    "tags": ["encryption"],
    "section": "tech",
    "searchKeyword": null,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-26T12:20:55.211Z"
  }
]

How much does it cost? (pricing)

Pay per event. Apify platform usage is included in these prices.

Event	FREE	BRONZE	SILVER	GOLD	PLATINUM / DIAMOND
Slashdot story (one record)	USD 0.007687	USD 0.007494	USD 0.007302	USD 0.006149	USD 0.006149
Actor start (per started GB of allocated memory)	USD 0.006251	USD 0.006094	USD 0.005938	USD 0.005	USD 0.005

The default memory is 512 MB, so a run has one start event. Worked totals on the FREE tier:

• Console example (10 tech stories): 10 × USD 0.007687 + USD 0.006251 = USD 0.083
• 100 stories (seven section pages, maxPages 7): 100 × USD 0.007687 + USD 0.006251 = USD 0.775

A story is charged once, after it is stored, and the run stops when your maximum charge is reached. The status message at run start estimates the maximum charge at your tier's per-story price.

How fast is it, and what are the limits?

The Actor reads public HTML one page at a time with a 350 ms default pause and three retries per page, so a few pages take seconds. It does not log in or bypass any access control.

Known limits on 2026-11-01:

• 15 stories per section page: a run needs about maxResults ÷ 15 pages, so raise maxPages with maxResults; the default 5 pages cover about 75 section stories.
• Search pages have no summary: stories from searchKeywords or a search URL come with summary and storyBody set to null. Use a section or story URL when you need the text.
• Tags are topic tags: Slashdot shows no user tags to visitors, so tags holds topic keywords, one per story on section and search pages. postedAt is Slashdot's display text, not an ISO date.

FAQ

Can I scrape Slashdot comments?

No. Each record has the commentCount, not the comment text.

How do I get more than 15 stories?

Raise maxResults and maxPages together. The Actor follows the Older link, about 15 stories per section page.

Can I search Slashdot by keyword?

Yes. Put keywords in searchKeywords, or a search URL such as https://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=linux in startUrls. Search results include titles, links, dates, topics and comment counts, without the summary.

Does it return the original article text?

It returns Slashdot's summary and the link to the source. Run an article extractor on sourceUrl for the full source article.

How often can I run it?

As often as you need; Slashdot posts new stories through the day. Use an Apify schedule for an hourly or daily feed. Duplicate stories are removed within a run, not across runs.

Is scraping Slashdot allowed?

The Actor reads only public pages. Follow Slashdot's terms and do not republish full story text without permission.

Related Actors

• Techmeme Scraper: tech headlines aggregated from many publishers.
• Google News Scraper: headlines, publishers and dates for any query.
• Smart Article Extractor: full article text from a URL.

Legal and compliance

Use this Actor only on public Slashdot pages and in line with Slashdot's terms, robots guidance and applicable law. Story summaries quote third-party reporting; review rights before storing or republishing text.

Last verified: 2026-11-01