💻 VS Code Marketplace Scraper

🚀 Pull rich extension records from the Visual Studio Code marketplace.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-06 · 📊 27 fields per record · 80,000+ extensions · install counts, ratings, categories, repository links

The VS Code Marketplace Scraper searches the official Visual Studio Code marketplace and returns structured records for any extension. Output includes publisher, display name, version, total install count, weekly downloads, star rating, review count, categories, tags, repository URL, last updated date, and pricing tier.

The marketplace catalog spans 80,000+ extensions across 20+ categories. Filters run server-side, so a single run can isolate the top Python tools, every theme over 500K installs, or all extensions from a specific publisher.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Developer-relations teams, market researchers, plugin builders, ML feature pipelines, content creators	Competitive analysis, extension discovery, publisher monitoring, install-trend research, alternative finders

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📋 What the VS Code Marketplace Scraper does

Five filtering workflows in a single run:

• 🔍 Free-text search. Match by name, description, publisher, or tag.
• 🏷️ Category filter. Themes, languages, AI, snippets, formatters, and more.
• 👤 Publisher filter. Pull every extension from a specific publisher.
• 📊 Sort options. Most installs, highest rated, newest, recently updated, weighted relevance.
• ⭐ Trending discovery. Surface fast-rising extensions by recent install velocity.

💡 Why it matters: clean, server-side filtering removes the parser-and-pagination work from your team and keeps your dataset fresh on every run.

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🎬 Full Demo

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

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan up to 1,000,000.
query	string	"copilot"	Free-text search.
category	string	""	Category filter. Empty = all.
publisher	string	""	Restrict to one publisher.
sortBy	string	"installs"	`installs`, `rating`, `name`, `updated`, `relevance`.

Example: top 100 Python extensions.

{
    "maxItems": 100,
    "query": "python",
    "sortBy": "installs"
}

Example: all extensions from Microsoft.

{
    "maxItems": 500,
    "publisher": "microsoft"
}

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📊 Output

Each record contains 27 fields. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🆔 extensionId	string	"github.copilot"
🖼️ iconUrl	string	"https://gallery.vsassets.io/..."
📛 displayName	string	"GitHub Copilot"
👤 publisher	string	"GitHub"
📌 version	string	"1.273.0"
📅 lastUpdated	ISO 8601	"2026-04-30T10:00:00Z"
📦 installCount	number	73000000
📥 downloadCount	number	120000000
⭐ averageRating	number	4.8
💬 ratingCount	number	1850
🏷️ categories	array	["AI","Programming Languages"]
🔖 tags	array	["ai","copilot"]
🔗 repositoryUrl	string	null
💰 isPaid	boolean	true
🌐 marketplaceUrl	string	"https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/..."

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🌐	Full marketplace coverage. Every public extension across themes, languages, AI, and productivity categories.
📊	Rich metrics. Install counts, weekly downloads, star ratings, review counts, update history.
🎯	Server-side filters. Category, publisher, sort, and search combine in one run.
⚡	Fast. 100 extensions in under 30 seconds.
🔄	Always fresh. Each run pulls the latest catalog and metric snapshot.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ This Actor	$5 free credit	80,000+ extensions	Live per run	name, category, publisher, sort	⚡ 2 min
Manual marketplace browsing	Free	Manual	Live	Web filters only	🕒 One at a time
Open-VSX mirror	Free	Subset	Variable	Limited	🐢 Setup
Custom HTTP scraping	Free	All	Live	DIY	🐢 Days

Pick this Actor when you want broad coverage, server-side filtering, and no pipeline maintenance.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the VS Code Marketplace Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick your filters and 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.

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💼 Business use cases

📊 Market Research Top extensions per category and language Install-share leaderboards Track new entrants in growing niches Identify gaps for new extensions	🤝 Competitive Analysis Compete-against-X feature lists Pricing-tier benchmarks Rating and review-count comparisons Update cadence vs competitors
🧠 ML & AI Pipelines Train extension-recommender models Build extension search with embeddings Categorize uncategorized extensions Predict install velocity	📰 Dev Content Best-of lists for newsletters and blogs Trending-extensions roundups Curated category guides Comparison articles

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🔌 Automating VS Code Marketplace 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. Hourly, daily, or weekly refreshes keep downstream databases in sync automatically.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Software-engineering research on tooling adoption IDE-extension ecosystem studies Reproducible marketplace snapshots Curriculum design with current tooling	🎨 Personal and creative Build personal extension dashboards Side-project showcases Newsletter content Blog posts on niche extensions
🤝 Non-profit and civic Open-source ecosystem health monitoring Track maintainer activity in OSS extensions Community resource directories Education tooling guides	🧪 Experimentation Train classification models on metadata Prototype semantic extension search Validate marketplace hypotheses Test recommendation algorithms

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🤖 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

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Set a query, category, publisher, or sort filter. The Actor queries the public marketplace catalog and returns one structured record per extension.

🔄 How fresh is the data?

Live per run. Install counts, ratings, and update timestamps reflect the current catalog state.

📊 How many fields per record?

27, including publisher, install count, weekly downloads, star rating, categories, tags, repo URL, pricing tier.

⭐ Are ratings normalized?

Yes. averageRating is a 0-5 float aggregated by the marketplace, with ratingCount showing the underlying review volume.

⚖️ Is this data public?

Yes. The marketplace catalog is publicly browsable. Only public metadata is collected.

🔁 Can I schedule runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to track install velocity, new entrants, or competitor releases.

📦 Does it include preview/insider releases?

Yes. Pre-release and insider versions appear when listed publicly.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free plan covers preview runs (10 records). A paid plan unlocks higher item counts and scheduling.

🆘 What if a run fails?

Apify retries transient errors. Inspect logs in the Runs tab; partial datasets are preserved.

🤖 Does it work with Open-VSX?

This Actor targets the official VS Code marketplace. For Open-VSX coverage, contact us via the Tally form below.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

VS Code Marketplace Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe 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.

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

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

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft Corporation or the Visual Studio Code project. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open data is collected.