GitHub Trending Scraper

Scrape GitHub trending repositories — today's, and any day in the past. Get repository names, descriptions, stars, forks, star gains, languages, topics and top contributors as structured JSON, CSV or Excel.

GitHub's trending page only ever shows you right now. This Actor also lets you ask what was trending on any date going back to 2011 — so you can track how a project, a language or a whole category grew over time.

What you can do with it

• Track open source trends — see which repositories are gaining stars fastest, today or on any past date.
• Research a technology's rise — pull the trending list for the day a framework launched and watch it climb.
• Find projects early — spot repositories breaking out before they hit mainstream lists.
• Build developer lead lists — get repository owners and top contributors for outreach.
• Feed newsletters and dashboards — schedule a daily run and always have fresh trending data.
• Compare languages over time — filter by Python, TypeScript, Rust, Go and more.

How to use it

1. Pick Live to scrape today's trending page, or Historical to rebuild a past day.
2. Choose a time range — today, this week or this month.
3. Optionally filter by programming language.
4. In historical mode, enter the date you want, one day per run.
5. Click Start and download your results as JSON, CSV or Excel.

No GitHub account, token or login is needed.

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	string	live (today's trending) or historical (one past day). Default live.
period	string	daily, weekly or monthly. Live mode only. Default daily.
language	string	Language filter, e.g. python. Leave empty for all languages.
date	string	The day to look up, YYYY-MM-DD. Historical mode only.
maxItems	integer	How many repositories to return. Default 25.

Advanced

Field	Type	Description
spokenLanguage	string	Restrict to a spoken language, e.g. en, zh. Often returns nothing — use sparingly.
proxyConfiguration	object	Not needed normally. Enable only if you hit rate limits.

Examples

Today's trending repositories

{
    "mode": "live",
    "period": "daily"
}

This week's trending Rust projects

{
    "mode": "live",
    "period": "weekly",
    "language": "rust"
}

What was trending the day GPT-4 launched

{
    "mode": "historical",
    "date": "2023-03-14",
    "maxItems": 25
}

Trending TypeScript on a specific day

{
    "mode": "historical",
    "date": "2025-06-03",
    "language": "typescript",
    "maxItems": 10
}

Output

One row per repository:

Field	Description
trendingDate	The day this repository was trending.
rank	Position in that day's list, starting at 1.
repo	Full name, e.g. microsoft/AI-For-Beginners.
owner / name	The two halves of the full name.
url	Link to the repository.
description	Repository description.
language	Primary programming language.
languageColor	The colour GitHub uses for that language.
stars	Total stars. Live mode.
forks	Total forks. Live mode.
starsInPeriod	Stars gained during the window. Both modes.
metadataAsOf	When the repository details were recorded.
period	daily, weekly or monthly.
topics	Repository topic tags. Historical mode.
builtBy	Top contributor usernames. Live mode.
source	live or historical.
scrapedAt	When this run collected the row.

Sample result:

{
    "trendingDate": "2025-06-03",
    "rank": 1,
    "repo": "onlook-dev/onlook",
    "owner": "onlook-dev",
    "name": "onlook",
    "url": "https://github.com/onlook-dev/onlook",
    "description": "The open source Cursor for Designers.",
    "language": "TypeScript",
    "starsInPeriod": 1270,
    "period": "daily",
    "source": "historical"
}

Good to know

• Live mode returns what GitHub's page shows, usually 15–25 repositories.
• Historical mode covers one day per run, going back to 2011.
• The public record a historical day is built from takes a while to complete, so the most recent months are not available yet — currently it runs about three months behind. Ask for a day that is too recent and the Actor tells you the latest date it can give you. For anything newer, use live mode.
• Weekly and monthly ranges are less noisy than daily if you want lasting trends rather than one-day spikes.
• Star and fork totals and contributor lists come with live results. Historical results give you the ranking, the star gain, and — for dates from June 2024 onward — the language, description and topics.
• Language filtering works best on dates from June 2024 onward. For older dates, leave it empty and filter the results yourself.

FAQ

Do I need a GitHub account or API token? No. Everything comes from publicly visible pages and public records.

How far back can I go? To 2011. The other end is the limit: the most recent months are not available yet, so historical currently reaches about three months back. Live mode covers today.

Can I get a whole month at once? Each run covers one day. Schedule or loop runs to build a longer series — each run is fast and independent.

Can I schedule it? Yes. Use Apify Schedules to run it daily and keep a rolling record of what's trending.

Disclaimer

This is an unofficial Actor. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by GitHub or Microsoft. All product names, logos, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are used here for identification purposes only.

The Actor collects only publicly available information. It does not log in, create accounts, bypass paywalls, or access anything that is not visible to an ordinary visitor.

Output may include usernames and other information relating to identifiable people. You are the data controller for anything you collect with this Actor and are responsible for having a lawful basis to process it under applicable data-protection law (such as GDPR or KVKK), and for complying with the source website's terms.