📦 Hex.pm Elixir & Erlang Package Registry Scraper

🚀 Export the Hex.pm package registry in seconds. Browse and search 14,000+ Elixir and Erlang packages with versions, dependencies, licenses, download counts, owners, and ready-to-paste dependency lines for mix.exs, rebar.config, and erlang.mk. No login, no API key, no manual scraping.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-15 · 📊 30 fields per record · 📦 14,000+ packages · 🧪 Elixir + Erlang ecosystems · 📈 Live download stats

The Hex.pm Elixir & Erlang Package Registry Scraper pulls the official Hex.pm package source and returns 30 fields per package, including name, description, latest version, full release history, license list, repository URL, all-time and recent download counts, dependency tree of the latest release, build tools, Elixir requirement, publisher, owners, and ready-to-paste dependency lines for the three major BEAM build systems. Hex.pm is the canonical package manager for Elixir and Erlang, used by every production team in the BEAM ecosystem since 2014.

The registry covers the full Elixir and Erlang ecosystem, from Phoenix and Ecto down to single-author utility libraries. This Actor exports the catalog as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML, with sorting by recent downloads, total downloads, recently added, recently updated, or alphabetical. Optional per-package lookups enrich each record with maintainer details and the latest release dependency tree.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
BEAM developers, DevSecOps teams, supply-chain auditors, package-tracker maintainers, conference organizers, recruiters, analysts	Dependency discovery, license auditing, popularity analytics, security review, maintainer mapping, ecosystem reporting

---

📋 What the Hex Packages Scraper does

Five workflows in a single run:

• 🔍 Search. Free-text package search across name and description.
• 🏷️ Sort. Recent downloads, total downloads, recently added, recently updated, or alphabetical.
• 📦 Bulk export. Pull tens of thousands of records with paged listing.
• 👤 Owner enrichment. Optional per-package lookup that adds maintainer usernames and emails.
• 🌲 Latest-release detail. Optional per-package lookup that adds checksum, dependency tree, build tools, Elixir requirement, and publisher.

Each record carries the latest version (and latest stable, when different), license list, repository URL, full release history with timestamps, all-time / recent / weekly / daily downloads, retirement flags, project links, and the exact dependency line you'd paste into mix.exs, rebar.config, or erlang.mk.

💡 Why it matters: the BEAM ecosystem ships fast, and dependency choices have outsized impact on uptime and security. Building your own catalog means handling pagination, version logic, and per-package follow-ups. This Actor delivers a clean, ready-to-query dataset on every run.

---

🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded Hex package dataset.

---

⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
search	string	""	Free-text package search (name and description). Empty = browse the full registry.
sort	enum	"recent_downloads"	Recent downloads, total downloads, recently added, recently updated, or alphabetical.
fetchOwners	boolean	false	Add per-package maintainer usernames and emails (one extra lookup per package).
fetchLatestRelease	boolean	true	Add latest-release dependency tree, checksum, build tools, Elixir requirement, publisher (one extra lookup per package).

Example: top 50 most-downloaded packages with full release detail.

{
    "maxItems": 50,
    "sort": "total_downloads",
    "fetchLatestRelease": true,
    "fetchOwners": false
}

Example: every package matching "phoenix" with maintainer enrichment.

{
    "maxItems": 100,
    "search": "phoenix",
    "sort": "recent_downloads",
    "fetchOwners": true,
    "fetchLatestRelease": true
}

⚠️ Good to Know: enabling fetchOwners or fetchLatestRelease makes one extra lookup per package, so a 1,000-package run runs longer than a plain listing-only run. For large bulk exports, leave both off and re-enrich the rows you actually care about.

---

📊 Output

Each package record contains 30 fields. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
📦 name	string	"phoenix"
🔗 packageUrl	string	"https://hex.pm/packages/phoenix"
🔗 docsUrl	string | null	"https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix"
📝 description	string | null	"Productive. Reliable. Fast."
🏷️ latestVersion	string	"1.7.18"
🏷️ latestStableVersion	string | null	"1.7.18"
📜 licenses	string[]	["MIT"]
🔗 repository	string | null	"https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix"
📅 insertedAt	ISO 8601	"2014-04-18T22:11:30Z"
🕒 updatedAt	ISO 8601	"2025-04-12T08:33:11Z"
📈 downloadsAll	number	41382391
📈 downloadsRecent	number	624512
📈 downloadsWeek	number | null	158234
📈 downloadsDay	number | null	22451
🔢 releaseCount	number	82
📦 releases	object[]	[{"version":"1.7.18","hasDocs":true,"releasedAt":"2025-04-12T..."}]
🔗 links	object	{"GitHub":"https://github.com/...","Website":"https://www.phoenixframework.org"}
📦 mixDependencyLine	string | null	"{:phoenix, \"~> 1.7.18\"}"
📦 rebarDependencyLine	string | null	"{phoenix, \"1.7.18\"}"
📦 erlangMkDependencyLine	string | null	"dep_phoenix = hex 1.7.18"
🚦 isRetired	boolean	false
📝 retirements	object | null	(only for retired packages)
🔐 latestChecksum	string | null	"a48ac1...c9d2"
📈 latestDownloads	number | null	158123
🏷️ elixirRequirement	string | null	"~> 1.14"
🛠️ buildTools	string[] | null	["mix"]
👤 latestPublisher	string | null	"chrismccord"
📦 dependencies	object[]	[{"name":"plug","requirement":"~> 1.14","optional":false}]
👤 owners	object[] | null	[{"username":"chrismccord","email":"chris@..."}]
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-15T00:00:00Z"
❌ error	string | undefined	(only when a record fails)

📦 Sample records

---

✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
📦	30 fields per package. Full release history, license list, dependency tree, owners, and ready-to-paste dependency lines.
🛠️	Three build systems supported. mix.exs, rebar.config, and erlang.mk snippets included whenever upstream provides them.
🔍	Five sort modes + free-text search. Find what's new, what's hot, what's classic, alphabetically, or by name.
📈	Live download stats. All-time, recent, weekly, and daily counts surface real adoption signal.
👤	Optional owner enrichment. Add maintainer usernames and emails when you need a contact path.
🌲	Optional dependency tree. Add latest-release dependencies, build tools, Elixir requirement, and checksum on demand.
🚫	No authentication. Works on the public Hex.pm catalog. No login or token required.

📊 The Hex.pm registry is the operating record of the global Elixir and Erlang ecosystem, used by every production BEAM team since 2014.

---

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ Hex Packages Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	14,000+ packages	Live per run	search, sort, owner / release enrichment	⚡ 2 min
Manual Hex.pm browsing	Free	Per-page	Manual	None	🐢 Hours
Build your own client	Free	Custom	Manual	Manual	⏳ Days
Static cached dumps	Free	Subset	Stale	None	🕒 Variable

Pick this Actor when you want a clean, query-ready Hex catalog with optional owner and dependency enrichment, in seconds.

---

🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the Hex.pm Elixir & Erlang Package Registry Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick a sort, optionally add a search term, decide whether to enrich with owners and release detail, and set maxItems.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

---

💼 Business use cases

🛡️ Supply-chain security and audit Catalog every dependency of a chosen package Flag retired or unmaintained packages License inventory for compliance reviews Maintainer contact mapping for vulnerability outreach	📊 Ecosystem analytics Top-N reports by recent or all-time downloads Track velocity of new package additions License-mix dashboards across the registry Build-tool adoption trends (mix vs rebar vs make)
🧑‍💻 Developer tooling Autocomplete and search-engine ingestion Dependency-line copy buttons in IDEs "Suggest similar packages" features Curated weekly newsletter automation	📰 Recruiter and conference outreach Maintainer lists for sponsorship and talks Identify top contributors by published packages Surface emerging package authors Build BEAM-community contact lists

---

🔌 Automating Hex Packages Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Daily refreshes catch the new releases and recent-download shifts for ecosystem dashboards.

---

🌟 Beyond business use cases

Package-registry data powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Empirical software-engineering studies of the BEAM ecosystem Reproducible dependency-graph analyses Coursework on package management and semantic versioning Long-term retirement and abandonment trend studies	🎨 Personal and creative Personal "starred packages" curation Hobbyist BEAM-community newsletters Side-project package directories Custom dashboards tracking favorite maintainers
🤝 Non-profit and civic Open-source supply-chain transparency BEAM-foundation health metrics reports Volunteer-led vulnerability triage Community discoverability tools	🧪 Experimentation Train ML models on package adoption signals Prototype recommendation systems Build agent pipelines that audit a project's mix.exs Validate ecosystem-visualization concepts

---

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

---

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Pick a sort, optionally narrow with a search term, decide whether to enrich with owner and latest-release detail, and the Actor pulls one clean structured record per package, with all the metadata your downstream system needs.

🔍 Can I search by package name only?

Yes. The search field accepts free text and matches against package name and description. Empty means "browse the full registry sorted as requested."

🔁 How often is the registry refreshed?

Hex.pm publishes new versions continuously. Every Actor run pulls the current state, so download counts and version numbers reflect the latest catalog.

👤 How do I get maintainer emails?

Set fetchOwners: true. The Actor will run one extra lookup per package and add the owners field with username and email per maintainer (when the maintainer has chosen to make their email public).

🌲 What does latest-release detail add?

fetchLatestRelease (default true) makes one extra lookup per package and adds the latestChecksum, latestDownloads, elixirRequirement, buildTools, latestPublisher, and the dependencies array of the latest release.

⚡ How fast is a full-registry export?

A plain listing without enrichment runs at roughly 100 packages per page. Adding fetchOwners or fetchLatestRelease adds two lookups per package. For 14,000 packages with both enrichments, plan on a longer run; for ranking dashboards, leave them off.

📦 What about the dependency-line snippets?

When upstream provides them, the Actor returns ready-to-paste mixDependencyLine, rebarDependencyLine, and erlangMkDependencyLine strings. Paste directly into your build file with no transformation.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to refresh the catalog daily, weekly, or hourly and keep your downstream dashboard or notifier in sync.

⚖️ Is this data legal to use?

Hex.pm publishes the registry openly. Always credit Hex.pm when you redistribute the data verbatim. Review per-package licenses (in the licenses field) before redistributing the actual package source.

💼 Can I use this data commercially?

Yes. The registry metadata is open. You are responsible for complying with the individual package licenses if you redistribute the package source itself.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan to use this Actor?

No. The free Apify plan is enough for testing and small runs (10 records per run). A paid plan lifts the limit and gives you access to scheduling, higher concurrency, and larger datasets.

🆘 What if I need help?

Our support team is here to help. Contact us through the Apify platform or use the Tally form linked below.

---

🔌 Integrate with any app

Hex.pm Elixir & Erlang Package Registry Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get new-release notifications in your channels
• n8n - Drop runs into self-hosted workflows
• Pipedream - Trigger event-driven pipelines
• Airbyte - Pipe Hex package data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push retirement alerts into Slack the moment a dependency is flagged, or refresh the package directory on your dev-tooling site nightly.

---

🔗 Recommended Actors

• 📊 jsDelivr Package Stats Scraper - CDN delivery stats for npm and GitHub packages
• 📦 Crates.io Scraper - Rust crate registry with versions and dependencies
• 🦫 Go Modules Scraper - Go module registry data
• 🐳 Docker Hub Scraper - Container image stats and tags
• 👨‍💻 dev.to Scraper - Developer community articles and tags

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more reference-data scrapers.

---

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

---

⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Hex.pm, the Hex Foundation, the Erlang Ecosystem Foundation, or any package maintainer. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open registry metadata is collected.