Hex.pm Scraper — Elixir & Erlang Package Data

Scrape package data from Hex.pm, the package registry for the Elixir and Erlang ecosystems. Search by keyword or look up exact package names and get clean, structured JSON: download counts, latest version, licenses, repository and docs links, and publish/update dates.

No login, no API key, no cookies. Runs on the public Hex.pm API.

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What it does

• 🔎 Search mode — run any number of search queries (e.g. phoenix, ecto, http) and collect the matching packages, sorted by downloads, recent downloads, or name.
• 🎯 Packages mode — pass an exact list of package names and get a record for each one.
• 📊 Structured output ready for spreadsheets, dashboards, or a database.
• 💸 Cheap: roughly ~$0.50 per 1,000 packages depending on plan.

Use cases

• Elixir package discovery — find and rank libraries by real download data.
• Dependency research — audit versions, licenses, and maintenance status of the packages you depend on.
• Dev tooling — feed accurate Hex metadata into internal developer portals and SBOM/license pipelines.
• OSS intelligence — track ecosystem trends, popular frameworks, and license distribution across the BEAM community.

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	select	search (queries → packages) or packages (exact names). Default search.
queries	array	Search terms (used in search mode). Default ["phoenix","ecto","http"].
packageNames	array	Exact package names (used in packages mode), e.g. ["phoenix"].
sort	select	downloads, recent_downloads, or name. Default downloads.
maxItems	integer	Max records to output (1–1000). Default 100.

Example input

{
  "mode": "search",
  "queries": ["phoenix", "ecto"],
  "sort": "downloads",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Output

Each dataset item is one package:

{
  "name": "phoenix",
  "description": "Productive. Reliable. Fast. A productive web framework...",
  "latest_version": "1.8.9",
  "latest_stable_version": "1.8.9",
  "licenses": ["MIT"],
  "downloads_all": 152437828,
  "downloads_recent": 3691475,
  "repository": "hexpm",
  "links": { "github": "https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix" },
  "html_url": "https://hex.pm/packages/phoenix",
  "docs_url": "https://phoenix.hexdocs.pm/",
  "inserted_at": "2014-04-21T22:38:32+00:00",
  "updated_at": "2026-07-07T12:56:15.681559+00:00",
  "source": "hex",
  "scraped_at": "2026-07-25T00:00:00+00:00"
}

All fields are nullable — a partial API response never breaks a run.

Related actors

• npm Package Scraper
• pkg.go.dev Scraper
• crates.io Scraper
• RubyGems Scraper

Notes

This actor uses only the public Hex.pm API and sends a descriptive User-Agent, as Hex requests. It does not collect private or personal data beyond what Hex.pm already publishes for each package.