# Coursera Course Catalog Scraper (`talcoe/coursera-udemy-catalog`) Actor

Search Coursera's course catalog by keyword and difficulty level, get clean records with instructor, rating, enrollment count, skills and pricing model, pay only per result returned.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/talcoe/coursera-udemy-catalog.md
- **Developed by:** [M Usama](https://apify.com/talcoe) (community)
- **Categories:** Other
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $5.00 / 1,000 results

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

### What does Coursera Course Catalog Scraper do?

This Actor searches Coursera's course catalog by keyword and returns clean, structured records for each course: title, instructor, partner institution, rating, enrollment count, difficulty level, skills taught, pricing model, description and more. Filter by keyword, difficulty level and language to keep runs focused on the courses you actually care about. Pricing is per result: you only pay for the courses returned.

### Data source

The Actor reads Coursera's public course search pages and course detail pages, both fully rendered server side into a JSON payload embedded in the HTML, so no login or browser rendering is needed. Data is as fresh as Coursera's own site.

### Why use it?

- Market research: see which partners and instructors dominate a topic, and how courses are rated.
- Content gap analysis: pull skills and difficulty levels across a topic to spot what's covered and what's missing.
- Lead generation for edtech and training vendors: find high enrollment courses and their partner institutions.
- Competitive monitoring: track a competitor's course catalog, ratings and enrollment over time with a Schedule.

### How to use it

1. Open the Actor and set a search keyword, and optionally a difficulty level or language filter.
2. Click Start. Download results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read them through the API.
3. Add a Schedule and an Integration (Slack, Google Sheets, webhook) to get new records automatically.

### Input

| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| `query` | Search keyword, the same as typing into Coursera's course search box. Default: `python`. |
| `difficultyLevel` | Only return courses at this level: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced or Mixed. Leave empty for no filter. |
| `language` | Only keep courses available in this language, for example English or Spanish. Leave empty for no filter. |
| `maxResults` | Hard stop for the run. You are billed per result, so this caps the cost. |
| `proxyConfiguration` | Apify proxy is recommended for larger runs. |

Example input:

```json
{
    "query": "python",
    "difficultyLevel": "",
    "language": "",
    "maxResults": 40
}
```

### Output

Every record has the same shape:

```json
{
    "id": "python-crash-course",
    "title": "Crash Course on Python",
    "instructors": ["Google Career Certificates"],
    "partner": "Google",
    "rating": 4.771676229407274,
    "ratingCount": 40609,
    "enrollmentCount": 1452151,
    "difficultyLevel": "BEGINNER",
    "pricingModel": "Included with Coursera Plus",
    "skills": ["Data Structures", "Programming Principles", "Computational Thinking", "Python Programming"],
    "domain": "Information Technology",
    "subdomain": "Support and Operations",
    "estimatedWorkload": null,
    "languages": ["English", "French", "German", "Spanish", "Arabic", "Japanese"],
    "certificates": ["SPECIALIZATION", "VERIFIED_CERTIFICATE"],
    "description": "This course is designed to teach you the foundations in order to write simple programs in Python using the most common structures...",
    "launchedAt": "2020-01-14T13:52:34.573Z",
    "url": "https://www.coursera.org/learn/python-crash-course",
    "imageUrl": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/coursera-course-photos/4d/a0200500ab41a7a1d00c96d470475c/GCC-Coursera-thumbnail-ITwithPython-crash-course-python-christine.png",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-28T09:05:24.865Z"
}
```

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `id` | Stable key (the course's URL slug), safe for deduplication between runs |
| `title` | Course name |
| `instructors` | Instructor full names |
| `partner` | University or company offering the course |
| `rating` | Average rating out of 5 |
| `ratingCount` | Number of ratings behind the average |
| `enrollmentCount` | Total learners enrolled |
| `difficultyLevel` | Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced or Mixed |
| `pricingModel` | Free to audit, Included with Coursera Plus, or Paid with a certificate fee. Coursera does not publish a fixed dollar price per course |
| `skills` | Skills taught, as tagged by Coursera |
| `domain` / `subdomain` | Coursera's topic categories for the course |
| `estimatedWorkload` | Time commitment as published by Coursera, when available |
| `languages` | Languages the course content is available in |
| `certificates` | Certificate types offered (for example verified certificate, specialization) |
| `description` | Full course description |
| `launchedAt` | When the course was first published, ISO date |
| `url` | Canonical course page URL |
| `imageUrl` | Course thumbnail |
| `scrapedAt` | When this record was collected, ISO date |

### Pricing

Pay per event: a small fee when a run starts, then a fixed price per result returned. You only pay for records that pass your filters. Set `maxResults` to cap any run.

### Limitations

- Covers Coursera only, not other catalogs.
- Coursera does not publish a fixed per-course dollar price on these pages, so `pricingModel` describes access (free, Coursera Plus, or paid) instead of a number.
- Specializations, Professional Certificates and Degrees are not included, only standalone courses.
- Very high `maxResults` values take proportionally longer since each course needs its own detail page fetch.

### FAQ

**Is this legal?** The Actor reads course listings Coursera publishes for any visitor without a login and stores only course information published for that purpose. You are responsible for how you use the data.

**Something is missing or broken?** Open an issue in the Issues tab; response time is usually under a day.

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Search term, the same as typing into Coursera's course search box.

## `difficultyLevel` (type: `string`):

Only return courses at this level. Leave as Any for no filter.

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

Only keep courses available in this language, for example English or Spanish. Leave empty for no filter.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Hard stop for the run. You are billed per result, so this caps the cost.

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

Apify proxy is recommended for larger runs.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "python",
  "difficultyLevel": "",
  "language": "",
  "maxResults": 40,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

# 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 = {
    "query": "python",
    "difficultyLevel": "",
    "language": "",
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": false
    }
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("talcoe/coursera-udemy-catalog").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 = {
    "query": "python",
    "difficultyLevel": "",
    "language": "",
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": False },
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("talcoe/coursera-udemy-catalog").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 '{
  "query": "python",
  "difficultyLevel": "",
  "language": "",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}' |
apify call talcoe/coursera-udemy-catalog --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,talcoe/coursera-udemy-catalog"
        }
    }
}
```

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/QQdRveN2iUQJVwlXc/builds/yxe0OXGUn0Wni1sCa/openapi.json