Techmeme Scraper — Tech News Headlines, Sources & Links

Techmeme Scraper turns the Techmeme homepage or River page into structured tech-news records: headline, publisher, original article URL, Techmeme's summary, thumbnail and the related coverage links (More, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Forums) for each story in Top News, More News and Earlier Picks, or for each River headline. It is built for daily tech briefings, news monitoring, newsletter curation, trend research and AI agents, and costs about USD 2.55 per 1,000 stories on the FREE tier (about USD 2.04 on GOLD), plus a small start fee.

One run makes one request to the public homepage or River page, parses the stories and writes one row per story. No login, browser or article download is involved.

What data does Techmeme Scraper return?

Each dataset row is one Techmeme story, not the full article.

Field	What you get
storyId	Techmeme cluster ID, for example 261026p19
section	Techmeme section heading (Top News, More News, Earlier Picks), or the date heading on the River page
title	Headline as Techmeme wrote it
sourceName, sourceUrl	Publisher of the primary citation and its homepage
articleUrl	Link to the original article
summary	Techmeme's short excerpt under the headline, or null (always null on the River page)
imageUrl	Techmeme thumbnail URL, or null (always null on the River page)
relatedLinks	Grouped coverage links: More (other outlets), X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Forums; each has title and url (empty on the River page)
sourcePageUrl, scrapedAt	Page scraped and extraction time

The SUMMARY key-value record states the outcome (DATA or EMPTY), stories delivered, the requested cap and warnings.

How do I get Techmeme news as JSON?

Run it with the defaults, or cap the number of stories:

{
  "pageUrl": "https://www.techmeme.com/",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "includeRelatedLinks": true
}

Input	What it does
pageUrl	The Techmeme page to scrape: the homepage https://www.techmeme.com/ (default) or the River https://www.techmeme.com/river
maxResults	Stories to return, 1–200 (default 50)
includeRelatedLinks	Keep the grouped More, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky and Forums links (default true); turn off for smaller rows

On 2026-10-27 the homepage gave 38 stories (25 Top News, 7 More News, 6 Earlier Picks): all had a publisher, 36 had related links and 15 had a summary and thumbnail. The River page gave 159 headlines from the last six days, with publisher and article link only.

When should I use it, and when not?

Use it when you want the tech stories Techmeme is featuring right now, with the original publisher link and the wider coverage around each one: a morning briefing, a Slack digest, a dataset of which outlets lead tech news, or an AI agent that answers "what is happening in tech today".

Use another tool when:

• You want news by keyword from many publishers: Google News Scraper.
• You want investing articles with authors and tickers: Seeking Alpha Articles Scraper.
• You need the full text of each article or Techmeme's archive. This Actor reads the current homepage or River page only.

Use it from an AI assistant

Techmeme Scraper works from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client through Apify's MCP server. Add it with https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=muhammadafzal/techmeme-scraper, then ask, for example: "What are the top tech stories on Techmeme right now? Give me each headline, the publisher and the article link."

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/techmeme-scraper').call({
    pageUrl: 'https://www.techmeme.com/',
    maxResults: 20,
    includeRelatedLinks: false,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items.map((story) => `${story.sourceName}: ${story.title} ${story.articleUrl}`).join('\n'));

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("muhammadafzal/techmeme-scraper").call(
    run_input={"pageUrl": "https://www.techmeme.com/", "maxResults": 20, "includeRelatedLinks": True}
)
for story in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(story["title"], story["sourceName"], story["articleUrl"], list(story["relatedLinks"]))

What does the output look like?

Two stories from 2026-10-27, related links shortened to two per group:

[
  {
    "storyId": "261026p19",
    "section": "Top News",
    "title": "Apple unveils a redesigned iPad mini with an 8.5-inch OLED display, an A20 Pro, a nano-texture display option, and IP67 water resistance, for $699+ from Nov. 6",
    "sourceName": "Apple",
    "sourceUrl": "http://www.apple.com/newsroom/",
    "articleUrl": "https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/10/apple-gives-ipad-mini-its-biggest-update-ever/",
    "summary": "Featuring a stunning OLED display in an even thinner and lighter design, a huge leap in performance, faster wireless connectivity, and water and dust resistance",
    "imageUrl": "https://www.techmeme.com/261026/i19.jpg",
    "relatedLinks": {
      "More": [{ "title": "Apple on YouTube", "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5h1JykMcFU" }],
      "X": [{ "title": "@markgurman", "url": "https://x.com/markgurman/status/2114668023999291733" }],
      "Forums": [{ "title": "Hacker News", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50243061" }]
    },
    "sourcePageUrl": "https://www.techmeme.com/",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-27T02:23:45.291Z"
  },
  {
    "storyId": "261026p46",
    "section": "Top News",
    "title": "Intel agrees to acquire Tel Aviv-based quantum computing startup Classiq; Classiq has raised more than $200M in funding and has about 130 employees",
    "sourceName": "Bloomberg",
    "sourceUrl": "https://www.bloomberg.com/",
    "articleUrl": "https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-26/intel-to-buy-israeli-startup-classiq-in-quantum-computing-push",
    "summary": "Intel Corp. agreed to buy Israeli startup Classiq Technologies Ltd. as part of a push to capitalize on quantum computing…",
    "imageUrl": "https://www.techmeme.com/261026/i46.jpg",
    "relatedLinks": {
      "More": [{ "title": "SiliconANGLE", "url": "https://siliconangle.com/2026/10/26/intel-buys-quantum-software-pioneer-classiq-for-2-2b/" }]
    },
    "sourcePageUrl": "https://www.techmeme.com/",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-27T02:23:45.291Z"
  }
]

Pricing: how much does it cost to scrape Techmeme?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing with platform usage included. Each story written to the dataset is one event.

Event	FREE	BRONZE	SILVER	GOLD / PLATINUM / DIAMOND
Techmeme story (one dataset row)	USD 0.002553	USD 0.002489	USD 0.002425	USD 0.002042
Actor start (per started GB of allocated memory)	USD 0.006251	USD 0.006094	USD 0.005938	USD 0.005

Worked totals on the FREE tier at the default 512 MB memory (one start event):

• One story: 1 × USD 0.002553 + USD 0.006251 = about USD 0.0088
• A full homepage run, 38 stories on 2026-10-27: 38 × USD 0.002553 + USD 0.006251 = about USD 0.103

Hourly monitoring at that size costs about USD 2.48 per day. A failed request or a page with no stories charges only the start fee and ends as a failed run.

What are the limits?

• What one page holds: the homepage shows about 40 stories (38 on 2026-10-27), so a homepage run returns fewer rows than a maxResults of 50. Use the River page for up to about 160 recent headlines.
• River rows are thinner: River headlines carry the publisher and article link, but no summary, thumbnail or related links.
• Two layouts: the homepage (and story permalink pages) and the River are supported. Other Techmeme pages may return no stories; the run then fails with an EMPTY summary and no story charges.
• No article bodies: you get Techmeme's headline and excerpt plus links; open articleUrl for the article itself.
• Layout changes: if Techmeme changes its markup, the run reports EMPTY instead of inventing stories.

FAQ

Does Techmeme have an RSS feed or API?

Techmeme publishes an RSS feed at https://www.techmeme.com/feed.xml (15 items when checked on 2026-10-27). This Actor is not an official Techmeme API and is not affiliated with Techmeme; use it when you want the homepage's stories as JSON through the Apify API, with the publisher, the original article URL and grouped related links on every story.

Can I scrape the Techmeme River page?

Yes. Set pageUrl to https://www.techmeme.com/river to get the chronological headlines (159 on 2026-10-27), each with its date heading in section, the publisher and the article link.

How many stories does one run return?

As many stories as the page shows, up to maxResults: 38 from the homepage and 159 from the River on 2026-10-27.

Does it return the full article text?

No. It returns Techmeme's headline, excerpt and links, and never downloads or bypasses publisher paywalls.

How do I monitor Techmeme every hour?

Create an Apify schedule for the Actor and deduplicate on storyId; send each new dataset to Slack, email or a webhook.

Can I export the stories to CSV or Excel?

Yes. Download the dataset from Apify Console as CSV, Excel, JSON or XML, or read it through the API. relatedLinks is nested, so JSON keeps it intact.

Related Actors

News data from the same developer:

• Google News Scraper for headlines, publishers and dates by keyword or RSS feed
• Seeking Alpha Articles Scraper for investing articles with authors and tickers

Legal and compliance

Techmeme Scraper reads one public page per run at a low request rate and does not log in or bypass paywalls. Headlines and excerpts belong to Techmeme and the cited publishers: link back to the source, follow Techmeme's terms, and do not republish their content wholesale.

Last verified: 2026-10-27