🦊 GitLab Public Projects Scraper

🚀 Pull public GitLab projects with stars, forks, topics, and owners in seconds. Built on the official GitLab REST API.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-27 · 📊 25 fields per record · All public gitlab.com projects · Search, sort, and topic filters

The GitLab Public Projects Scraper queries the official gitlab.com/api/v4/projects endpoint and returns one normalized record per public project. Useful for tracking open-source DevOps tooling, discovering self-hosted alternatives to GitHub repos, monitoring topic communities (kubernetes, gitops, AI), or building competitive intelligence on the open-source ecosystem.

Coverage: every public project on gitlab.com. Filters by search query, topic, and sort order (stars, last activity, created date). Up to 1,000,000 records per run on the paid plan.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Developer relations	Map ecosystem of related OSS projects
Security teams	Find packages by topic or maintainer
Recruiters	Spot top GitLab contributors
Researchers	Study OSS contribution patterns

📋 What the GitLab Public Projects Scraper does

• Queries the public GitLab REST API directly
• Returns 25 normalized fields per project (name, path, stars, forks, topics, license, owner...)
• Supports search, sort, topic, and ascending/descending order
• Outputs to multiple table outputs via Apify dataset
• Auto-limits to 10 items on the free plan; up to 1,000,000 on paid

💡 Why it matters: GitLab hosts millions of projects but no public search UI exposes them at scale. This Actor turns that catalog into a queryable dataset.

🎬 Full Demo (🚧 Coming soon)

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Description
search	string	Search term, e.g. react
maxItems	integer	Cap on rows (free: 10)
orderBy	enum	star_count, last_activity_at, created_at, etc.
sort	enum	asc / desc
topic	string	Filter by topic, e.g. kubernetes

{ "search": "react", "maxItems": 100, "orderBy": "star_count", "sort": "desc" }

{ "topic": "kubernetes", "orderBy": "last_activity_at", "maxItems": 200 }

⚠️ Good to Know: Without a token, GitLab's API rate-limits to ~10 requests per second per IP. The Actor paces requests automatically.

📊 Output

Field	Type	Description
🖼 imageUrl	string	Project avatar URL
📌 name	string	Project name
📌 nameWithNamespace	string	Full namespaced name
🔗 url	string	gitlab.com web URL
🆔 id	integer	GitLab project ID
📁 path	string	URL slug
📁 pathWithNamespace	string	Full path with namespace
📝 description	string	Project description
🌿 defaultBranch	string	Default branch name
👁 visibility	string	public / internal
⭐ starCount	number	Stars
🍴 forksCount	number	Forks
🐛 openIssuesCount	number	Open issues
🏷 topics	array	Topics list
🏷 tagList	array	Tags
📜 license	string	License name
🕒 createdAt	string	Created ISO timestamp
🕒 lastActivityAt	string	Last activity ISO timestamp
🔗 readmeUrl	string	README URL
🔑 sshUrl	string	SSH clone URL
🔗 httpUrl	string	HTTPS clone URL
👤 owner	string	Namespace name
👤 ownerPath	string	Namespace path
👤 ownerKind	string	user / group
🕒 scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp
❌ error	string | null	Error message if extraction failed

✨ Why choose this Actor

• Direct GitLab REST API, no third-party caching
• Real-time data, never stale
• Pay-per-result pricing; only charged for what you keep
• Works with Make, Zapier, n8n, Airbyte, GitHub Actions, Google Sheets

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Maintenance	Coverage
GitLab UI search	Free	Manual	One page at a time
Self-built API client	Dev cost	High	Custom
This actor	Pay per result	None	Full search + filters

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account w/ $5 credit
2. Open the GitLab Public Projects Scraper actor page
3. Set search, orderBy, optional topic, and maxItems
4. Click Start and wait for the run to finish
5. Use the dataset as multiple table outputs

💼 Business use cases

Developer relations

Need	How this Actor helps
Ecosystem mapping	Pull all projects by topic
Influencer tracking	Sort by stars to find top owners

Security

Need	How this Actor helps
Supply chain audit	Scan public projects in your topic
License compliance	Filter by license field

Recruiting

Need	How this Actor helps
Find OSS contributors	Sort by activity, drill into owner
Skill mapping	Filter by topic, language

Research

Need	How this Actor helps
OSS trends	Bulk pull over time
Comparative analysis	GitLab vs GitHub trends

🔌 Automating GitLab Public Projects Scraper

Run on a schedule, forward results to Make, Zapier, n8n, Slack, Airbyte, GitHub Actions, or Google Drive. Push new high-star projects into a Slack channel daily.

🌟 Beyond business use cases

Research

Build a longitudinal study of OSS topic growth over months/years.

Personal

Discover obscure self-hosted alternatives to your favourite SaaS tools.

Non-profit

Track open civic-tech projects by topic (e.g. civic-tech, accessibility).

Experimentation

Build a "GitLab radar" Slack bot for newly active projects in your space.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Perplexity
• Microsoft Copilot

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does it need a GitLab token? No. Public endpoints work anonymously.

Q: Can I scrape private projects? No - only visibility: public is returned.

Q: How fresh is the data? Live - every request hits gitlab.com.

Q: Can I filter by language? Use the topic field - many projects tag languages (e.g. python, rust).

Q: What's the rate limit? ~10 RPS anonymous; the Actor paces well under it.

Q: Can I scrape self-hosted GitLab? This Actor targets gitlab.com specifically. Self-hosted instances would need a forked Actor.

Q: Does it include archived projects? Yes - check archived field if needed.

Q: How do I find a topic slug? Browse gitlab.com/explore/projects/topics.

Q: Can I sort by forks? orderBy supports id, name, path, created_at, updated_at, last_activity_at, star_count. Forks not supported by upstream API.

Q: Does it return README contents? No - just readmeUrl. Fetch separately if needed.

🔌 Integrate with any app

Slack, Discord, Sheets, Airtable, BigQuery, S3, Snowflake, and 100+ more via Apify webhooks.

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: independent tool, not affiliated with GitLab Inc. Only publicly available data is collected.