Instagram Comments Scraper - Likes & Commenters

Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Meta Platforms, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. "Instagram" is referenced only to describe the publicly available website this Actor collects data from.

Scrape Instagram comments without a login, including the two things the popular comment scrapers leave out: the like count on every comment and how many replies it has - plus optional commenter follower counts and bios.

Why this one

The widely used comment scrapers return a six-field view: id, text, timestamp, commenter username, commenter avatar, post URL. For sentiment work, UGC rights and community management that is not enough - you cannot tell a comment with 400 likes from one with none, and you cannot tell whether the commenter has 12 followers or 120,000.

	This actor
Comment text, timestamp, commenter	✅
Like count per comment	✅ 100% populated
Reply count per comment	✅ 100% populated
Commenter follower count + bio + links	✅ optional paid enrichment
Filter by minimum comment likes	✅
Parent-post context on every row	✅ likes, comments, caption, owner
GIF-comment flag, verified-commenter flag	✅
Monitor mode for new comments	✅
Login required	❌ never

What you get per comment

commentId · text · textLength · likeCount · replyCount · isReply · parentCommentId · createdAt · createdAtTimestamp · hashtags[] · mentions[] · hasGiphy · hasTranslation · isCovered · restrictedStatus · commenterUsername · commenterId · commenterIsVerified · commenterProfilePicUrl · commenterProfileUrl · commenterFollowersCount* · commenterFollowingCount* · commenterFullName* · commenterBio* · commenterIsPrivate* · commenterExternalUrls[]* · postUrl · postShortCode · postOwnerUsername · postOwnerIsVerified · postLikeCount · postCommentCount · postedAt · postCaption · scrapedAt

* with includeCommenterProfile: true

Input

{
  "postUrls": ["https://www.instagram.com/p/DbIdlf0j6uA/"],
  "usernames": ["natgeo"],
  "maxPostsPerUser": 3,
  "includeCommenterProfile": true,
  "maxEnrichments": 50,
  "minCommentLikes": 1,
  "maxResults": 100,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}

Field	What it does
postUrls	Post/Reel URLs or bare shortcodes
usernames	Read comments on each handle's recent posts
maxPostsPerUser	How many recent posts per handle (default 3)
includeCommenterProfile	Adds follower count, bio and links per commenter
maxEnrichments	Hard cap on commenter lookups, so the join can never run away
minCommentLikes	Skip low-value noise
includeReplies	Include reply comments when Instagram exposes them
maxCommentsPerPost / maxResults	Caps. 0 = no limit
onlyNewComments	Monitor mode for a scheduled feed

Honest limits - read before you buy

• Instagram exposes roughly 14 top-level comments per post to logged-out visitors. A post with 15,000 comments will return the newest ~14. Volume comes from breadth - pass many post URLs or several handles - not depth. Deeper comment pagination requires an internal token that is not present anywhere in the logged-out page, so this actor does not pretend to offer it.
• Reply bodies are not available logged-out. Measured across 202 comments: parent_comment_id was null on every one, so only top-level comments come back. What you do get is replyCount on every comment - so you can see which comments started a thread and how big it got, even though the replies themselves are out of reach without a login.
• likeCount is real but often small on the newest comments of a large post - that is the true value, not a defect. Use minCommentLikes to surface the ones that landed.
• Commenter enrichment costs one request per unique commenter. It is off by default, capped by maxEnrichments, cached per handle within a run, and billed as its own event - so it can never silently multiply your bill.
• Public posts only. Private accounts and comment-disabled posts return nothing, gracefully.

Pricing (pay per event, no start fee)

Event	Price	What it covers
comment	$0.0025	One comment with like count, reply count, timestamp, commenter handle, parent-post context
commentEnriched	$0.008	Adds that commenter's follower count, following count, full name, bio and links

Comments are billed before they are written, and the enrichment is billed only when it actually produced data - never for a row that did not ship.

Use with AI assistants (MCP)

Perfect as an LLM tool for sentiment and community analysis through the Apify MCP server - ask an assistant to "pull the most-liked comments on @natgeo's recent posts" and it can call this actor directly.

Agent-ready: autonomous payments (x402 & Skyfire)

This actor is agent-ready — AI agents can discover it, run it, and pay for it autonomously, with no Apify account and no human in the loop. It uses pay-per-event pricing and limited permissions, so it qualifies for Apify's agentic-payment standards:

• x402 — an open, HTTP-native payment protocol. Agents pay per run in USDC on the Base network directly through the Apify MCP server — no account, no API key.
• Skyfire — agent-to-service payments for fully autonomous AI-agent workflows.

Building an AI agent, MCP tool, or autonomous data pipeline? This scraper is ready to plug in and pay as it goes.

Integrations

Make, Zapier, Slack, Google Drive, Airbyte, GitHub, the Apify API, Schedules and Webhooks.

Automate & schedule

Run this Actor on autopilot and pull results into your own stack:

• Apify API - start runs, fetch datasets and manage schedules over REST.
• apify-client for JavaScript and apify-client for Python - official SDKs.
• Schedules - run it hourly, daily or weekly and keep your dataset current.
• Webhooks - trigger downstream actions (CRM import, Slack alert, email sequence) the moment a run finishes.

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'MY_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('scrapesage/instagram-comments-scraper').call({
    "postUrls": [
        "https://www.instagram.com/p/DbIdlf0j6uA/"
    ],
    "usernames": [
        "natgeo"
    ],
    "maxPostsPerUser": 2,
    "maxResults": 20,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true,
        "apifyProxyGroups": [
            "RESIDENTIAL"
        ]
    }
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Got ${items.length} records`);

FAQ

Do I need a login or cookies? No.

Why only ~14 comments per post? That is what Instagram serves logged-out. See the limits section - this actor tells you the truth rather than quietly returning a thin result.

Why are follower counts null? Set includeCommenterProfile: true. It is off by default because it costs an extra request per commenter.

Can I get replies to a specific comment? Not without a login. You do get replyCount so you know which comments have threads.

Related scrapers by scrapesage

• Instagram Reels Scraper - play counts, view counts and Reel analytics
• Instagram Hashtag Scraper - filtered hashtag and keyword post search
• Threads Scraper - profiles, posts and replies
• YouTube Scraper - video and channel engagement data

Data & lawful use

This Actor reads only what Instagram publishes to logged-out visitors: it does not log in, use cookies or session tokens, create accounts, or reach anything behind a sign-in. Names, handles, bios and engagement figures are public, but they relate to identifiable people, so treat the output as personal data. If you are in the EU or UK you are the data controller for what you do with it: have a lawful basis (usually legitimate interest for research, marketing analytics or B2B prospecting), honour access and deletion requests, and do not use the output for spam or unsolicited messaging.

Under Apify's Standard Actor Contract, which governs your use of this Actor, you are the controller of any personal data in your input and output and scrapesage acts only as your processor: that data is processed solely to run your job, written only to your own Apify storage, never used for any other purpose and never shared onward. If you need help with a data-subject request that involves this Actor's output, open an issue on the Issues tab.

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Meta Platforms, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

"Instagram" and any related marks are the property of their respective owners and are used here only in a descriptive, nominative sense - to identify the publicly accessible website from which this Actor collects data. This Actor is not an official Instagram product, is not authorised or certified by Meta Platforms, Inc., and does not distribute Instagram software. It collects only publicly available information; you are responsible for ensuring your use of that data complies with applicable laws, regulations and the terms of the source website.

Need help?

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab, or visit the Apify help center. Feature requests are welcome - this Actor is actively maintained.