Udacity Course Scraper

Udacity Course Scraper

Scrape Udacity course catalogs, nanodegree programs, and free courses by search query or school, up to a million per run. Every result includes its syllabus, difficulty, estimated duration, and pricing signals. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Udacity's catalog spans nanodegrees, free courses, and executive programs spread across multiple school pages, with no public API for bulk access. This actor reads the public course listings directly, applies your filters for school, difficulty, program type, and price, and returns each match in one consistent schema. It can optionally drill into each course to pull the full curriculum, instructor list, and prerequisites.

Who uses it	What they scrape Udacity for
Edtech market analysts	Track which skills and topics Udacity is prioritizing across its schools this quarter.
Content aggregators	Build a searchable index of Udacity's free courses and nanodegrees for a career advice site.
Competitive intelligence teams	Compare Udacity's curriculum depth, instructor profiles, and pricing against other MOOC platforms.
Job platform operators	Match Udacity nanodegree syllabi to the skills requested in live job postings.

What it does

This Actor collects Udacity course and nanodegree listings by search query or school filter, and returns each one as a flat row with metadata and optional full details.

• 🔍 Search-driven discovery: Feed a keyword like 'machine learning' and get every matching course or nanodegree.
• 🏫 School and category filters: Narrow results to a specific Udacity school such as School of Data Science or School of Cloud Computing.
• 📊 Difficulty and type segmentation: Filter by Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced, and by Degree (nanodegree) or Course (free course).
• 💰 Free-only toggle: Return only courses that are free to the public, skipping paid nanodegrees.
• 📋 Full detail enrichment: Optionally fetch the complete curriculum, instructor names, and prerequisites for each course.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Udacity data

📈 Monitor Udacity's catalog changes.

A learning platform analyst runs the actor weekly with no search query and includeDetails set to false, then diffs the course list to detect new nanodegrees and retired free courses.

🧠 Build a skill-to-course map.

A career coach runs the actor with includeDetails enabled, extracts the syllabus from every School of Data Science nanodegree, and maps each taught skill to open job roles.

💰 Audit free versus paid content.

A content strategist runs the actor with freeOnly toggled on and off in two runs, then compares the volume and topics of Udacity's free courses against its paid nanodegrees.

🎓 Populate a course comparison site.

A webmaster runs the actor for all schools, exports the dataset to JSON, and renders a filterable directory where visitors can compare Udacity programs by difficulty, duration, and rating.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API registration	Reads Udacity's public catalog pages directly with no OAuth or key management.
Fixed flat schema	Every course arrives with the same fields, whether it is a free course or a nanodegree.
Optional deep detail	Toggle full curriculum, instructors, and prerequisites on or off to balance speed and depth.
Sort control	Order results by relevance, enrollment count, average rating, or last update date.

How it compares

This actor focuses on flexible search-driven collection with optional full-detail enrichment, while other Udacity scrapers on Apify target school pages or offer a narrower filter set.

Feature	ParseForge	Udacity Course Scraper	Udacity Courses & Nanodegrees Scraper
Search by keyword	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Filter by school	Yes	Not listed	Yes
Filter by difficulty	Yes	Not listed	Yes
Free-only toggle	Yes	Not listed	Not listed
Full curriculum and instructor details	Optional	Not listed	Not listed
Sort by rating or enrollment	Yes	Not listed	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a search query and optional school, difficulty, program type, and free-only filters. Filters run as each course is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "searchQuery": "machine learning",
  "maxItems": 10,
  "includeDetails": false
}

A larger pull:

{
  "searchQuery": "machine learning",
  "maxItems": 200,
  "includeDetails": false
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.016 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.60
1,000 results	$16.00
10,000 results	$160.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Udacity Course Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Udacity through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/udacity-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your search query and filters are not too narrow. Try removing the school filter or setting difficulty to empty. Also confirm that 'Free Courses Only' is not excluding everything if you are looking for nanodegrees.

The run is very slow with 'Include Full Details' enabled.

This is expected because the actor visits each course page individually. Reduce 'Max Items' for testing, or lower 'Max Concurrency' if you are hitting rate limits. For bulk catalog scans, keep 'Include Full Details' disabled.

Some courses are missing their syllabus even with 'Include Full Details' on.

Udacity occasionally changes its page layout. If a course page does not contain a structured syllabus block, that field will be empty. The actor still returns all other available metadata.

I am getting HTTP errors or timeouts.

Lower the 'Max Concurrency' to 3 or 5 in Advanced Options. If the problem persists, try running the actor with a smaller 'Max Items' value to isolate whether a specific course page is causing the issue.

The school filter is not returning the courses I expect.

Enter the school name exactly as it appears on Udacity, for example 'School of Data Science'. Partial matches are not supported. Run the actor once without the school filter to see the exact school names in your results.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Can I scrape only free Udacity courses?	Yes. Set the 'Free Courses Only' toggle to true and the actor will return only courses that are free to the public. Paid nanodegrees and executive programs will be excluded.
How do I get the full syllabus for each course?	Enable the 'Include Full Details' checkbox. The actor will visit each course page to extract the complete curriculum, instructor names, and prerequisites. This makes the run slower but returns much richer data.
What is the difference between 'Degree' and 'Course' in the program type filter?	'Degree' corresponds to Udacity's paid nanodegree programs. 'Course' corresponds to individual free courses that are often part of a larger nanodegree but available standalone.
Can I filter by a specific school like School of Artificial Intelligence?	Yes. Use the 'School / Category' field and enter the exact school name, for example 'School of Artificial Intelligence'. The actor will return only courses belonging to that school.
Does this actor require a Udacity login or API key?	No. It reads Udacity's public catalog pages directly. You do not need an account, an API key, or any OAuth setup.
How many courses can I scrape in one run?	You can set the 'Maximum courses' field up to 1,000,000. The actor will stop when it reaches that number or when there are no more matching courses.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify run console.
Can I sort results by rating or enrollment?	Yes. Use the 'Sort By' dropdown to order results by relevance, enrollment count, average rating, or last update date before the actor begins collecting.
What happens if I leave the search query empty?	The actor will return courses across all schools, applying only the filters you set for school, difficulty, program type, and free-only status.
How do I avoid getting rate-limited?	Lower the 'Max Concurrency' setting in Advanced Options. A value of 5 or less makes fewer parallel requests and reduces the chance of being blocked.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Udacity, Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.