# Chrome Web Store Reviews & Extension Intel Scraper (`sotto-data/chrome-web-store-reviews`) Actor

Scrape Chrome extension reviews + listing intel (users, rating, version, history). Star/date filters & only-new monitoring.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/sotto-data/chrome-web-store-reviews.md
- **Developed by:** [Sotto Data](https://apify.com/sotto-data) (community)
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.80 / 1,000 review scrapeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Chrome Web Store Reviews & Extension Intel Scraper

**Extract every written review of any Chrome extension – star rating, full text, author, ISO timestamps, helpful / not-helpful votes, the extension version the user was on, language, and the developer's reply – plus the listing's own intel: weekly users, average rating, rating count, current version, last update, first published date, size, languages, category, developer, website, support / privacy links and manifest permissions.**

Filter by star rating (e.g. only 1–2★ complaints), by **reviews since date**, or switch on **"only new reviews"** and schedule it daily to get alerts whenever a competitor (or your own extension) gets a new review.

No login, no browser, no cookies – this Actor talks to the Chrome Web Store's public `batchexecute` JSON-RPC endpoint (the same one the page itself calls) and reads listing metadata from the public detail page. Runs are fast and cheap.

### Why this Actor (vs other Chrome Web Store scrapers)

| Capability | This Actor | Typical reviews-only scrapers |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews + full listing intel in one run | ✅ | Often reviews-only, or listings-only |
| Star-rating filter (complaint mining) | ✅ | Rare |
| `reviewsSince` incremental cut-off | ✅ | Rare |
| `onlyNewReviews` monitoring (KV state) | ✅ | Rare |
| Version-tagged reviews + update history fields | ✅ | Partial |
| Developer replies matched to the review | ✅ | Sometimes dropped |
| Pay-per-event (`review` + `extension`) | ✅ | Varies |

### What can I use it for?

- **Extension developers** – monitor your own reviews and reply faster; catch 1★ spikes after a release.
- **Competitor research** – mine 1–2★ reviews of category leaders to find bugs and feature gaps.
- **Security / trust & safety** – track user count, permissions and sudden rating drops.
- **Market analysts** – compare `userCount`, `rating`, `updatedAt` across a set of extensions over time.
- **AI agents & LLM pipelines** – clean, dated, version-tagged review text for sentiment / RAG.

### Input example

```json
{
  "extensionUrls": [
    "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-translate/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb",
    "kbfnbcaeplbcioakkpcpgfkobkghlhen"
  ],
  "maxReviewsPerExtension": 100,
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "language": "en",
  "ratings": ["1", "2"],
  "reviewsSince": "2026-01-01",
  "onlyNewReviews": false,
  "includeExtensionDetails": true
}
```

The default input (two popular extensions, 40–50 newest English reviews each) finishes in well under a minute and always produces a non-empty dataset – safe for Apify's daily auto-test.

### Output

Two item types in one dataset (use the **Reviews** and **Extensions** views, or filter by `type`).

**Review**

```json
{
  "type": "review",
  "reviewId": "08e3da1f-9956-42f8-82e1-73009116a94c",
  "extensionId": "gighmmpiobklfepjocnamgkkbiglidom",
  "extensionName": "AdBlock — block ads across the web",
  "rating": 1,
  "text": "…",
  "author": "Giovanni",
  "publishedAt": "2026-08-04T06:33:42Z",
  "version": "6.44.0.1",
  "language": "en",
  "helpfulCount": 7,
  "notHelpfulCount": 0,
  "hasReply": true,
  "developerReply": "Thanks for sharing your thoughts…",
  "developerReplyAt": "2026-08-04T18:48:25Z"
}
```

**Extension**

```json
{
  "type": "extension",
  "extensionId": "aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb",
  "name": "Google Translate",
  "userCount": 36000000,
  "rating": 4.23,
  "ratingCount": 44850,
  "reviewCount": 1595,
  "version": "2.0.17",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-01T22:02:22Z",
  "firstPublishedAt": "2009-12-03T20:09:12Z",
  "size": "1.09MiB",
  "category": "productivity/education",
  "developer": "Google Ireland, Ltd.",
  "permissions": ["activeTab", "contextMenus", "storage"],
  "scrapedReviewStats": {
    "reviewsScraped": 40,
    "avgRating": 4.1,
    "negativeShare": 0.15,
    "replyRate": 0.2,
    "topVersions": {"2.0.17": 22}
  }
}
```

### Pricing (pay per event)

| Event | Price |
|---|---|
| Review saved | **$0.80 per 1,000 reviews** |
| Extension details saved | **$2.00 per 1,000 extensions** |

No start fee beyond Apify's tiny platform start event. Errors, not-found extensions, filtered-out reviews and (in monitoring mode) already-seen reviews are free.
Examples: 500 newest reviews of one extension ≈ $0.40 · daily monitoring of 20 competitors (~15 new reviews/day) ≈ $0.36/month.

### Tips

- **Complaint mining:** `ratings: ["1","2"]` + `sortBy: "lowest_rating"`.
- **Fast incremental runs:** `sortBy: "newest"` + `reviewsSince` stops pagination as soon as older reviews appear.
- **Review alerts:** `onlyNewReviews: true` + an Apify Schedule + Slack/email integration.
- **Full language coverage:** `language: "all"` (the Store partitions reviews by language; English-only misses a large share on global extensions).
- Reviews are paced politely (~3 req/s) with retries on 403/429/5xx. Enable a proxy only for very large jobs.

### Is it legal?

This Actor only collects what the Chrome Web Store shows publicly on each extension's page, without logging in. Reviewer display names and avatars are personal data, so laws such as the EU GDPR or the California CCPA apply to how you store and use them; drop `author` / `authorAvatar` if you do not need them. Respect Google's terms of service. This is general information, not legal advice.

# Actor input Schema

## `extensionUrls` (type: `array`):

Chrome Web Store listing URLs or bare 32-character extension IDs. Old chrome.google.com/webstore links work too.

## `includeExtensionDetails` (type: `boolean`):

One 'extension' item per listing: users, rating, rating count, version, update date, size, languages, developer, category, website, permissions.

## `includeReviews` (type: `boolean`):

Include written reviews (rating, text, author, version, helpful votes, developer reply).

## `maxReviewsPerExtension` (type: `integer`):

Reviews are fetched 100–200 per request. 0 = skip reviews. Cap keeps the Apify daily auto-test fast.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Newest is best for monitoring / since-date. Lowest rating first is best for complaint mining.

## `language` (type: `string`):

The Store partitions reviews by language. Use 'all' to sweep every language and deduplicate.

## `ratings` (type: `array`):

e.g. 1 and 2 for complaint mining. Empty = all.

## `reviewsSince` (type: `string`):

Keep only reviews on/after this date. With 'Newest first' pagination stops at the first older review.

## `onlyNewReviews` (type: `boolean`):

Remember review IDs between runs and output only unseen ones. Schedule daily for review alerts.

## `addReviewStats` (type: `boolean`):

Average, negative share, developer reply rate and top versions of the scraped reviews.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Extensions scraped in parallel.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional. Usually not needed; enable Apify RESIDENTIAL only if you see 403/429.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "extensionUrls": [
    "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-translate/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb",
    "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/grammarly-ai-writing-assistant/kbfnbcaeplbcioakkpcpgfkobkghlhen"
  ],
  "includeExtensionDetails": true,
  "includeReviews": true,
  "maxReviewsPerExtension": 50,
  "sortBy": "newest",
  "language": "en",
  "ratings": [],
  "onlyNewReviews": false,
  "addReviewStats": true,
  "maxConcurrency": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Extension detail items and review items pushed to the default dataset.

## `runSummary` (type: `string`):

Per-extension totals and errors for the run.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "extensionUrls": [
        "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-translate/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb",
        "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/grammarly-ai-writing-assistant/kbfnbcaeplbcioakkpcpgfkobkghlhen"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("sotto-data/chrome-web-store-reviews").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "extensionUrls": [
        "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-translate/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb",
        "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/grammarly-ai-writing-assistant/kbfnbcaeplbcioakkpcpgfkobkghlhen",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("sotto-data/chrome-web-store-reviews").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "extensionUrls": [
    "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-translate/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb",
    "https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/grammarly-ai-writing-assistant/kbfnbcaeplbcioakkpcpgfkobkghlhen"
  ]
}' |
apify call sotto-data/chrome-web-store-reviews --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,sotto-data/chrome-web-store-reviews"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/YaIVptfw7Z4wzbcN9/builds/InPIi04qZigpmTeYw/openapi.json