Reddit Scraping APIs Compared — Best Tools for Reddit Data in 2026

Reddit Scraping APIs Compared — Best Tools for Reddit Data in 2026

Reddit's API changes in July 2023 reshaped the entire landscape. Pushshift — the tool researchers relied on for historical data access — lost its public API. Rate limits tightened. Free access was restricted to non-commercial use. Third-party apps were effectively priced out of existence.

Three years later, the dust has settled. Here's what works for Reddit data collection in 2026, what doesn't, and what the tradeoffs look like.

Key Takeaways

• PRAW + Official API is the only fully compliant option — free, but limited to 100 req/min and no historical bulk access
• Pushshift is dead — no replacement exists for historical Reddit data at scale
• Apify Reddit Scraper is the most reliable paid option for scraping beyond API limits
• SearchHive ScrapeForge can extract Reddit page content as structured markdown
• Open-source scrapers (snscrape, etc.) are mostly broken post-2023

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1. Reddit Official API (via PRAW)

The official Reddit API gives you access to posts, comments, user profiles, and subreddit metadata. PRAW (Python Reddit API Wrapper) makes it easy to use.

Cost: Free for personal/non-commercial scripts. Commercial use requires a paid plan — pricing varies by use case and requires approval from Reddit.

Rate limits: 100 requests/minute. OAuth2 required for all endpoints.

Python usage:

import praw

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    client_id="your-client-id",
    client_secret="your-secret",
    user_agent="my-reddit-script/1.0"
)

# Get top posts from a subreddit
subreddit = reddit.subreddit("MachineLearning")
for post in subreddit.hot(limit=10):
    print(f"{post.title} | Score: {post.score} | {post.url}")

# Get comments from a post
submission = reddit.submission(url="https://reddit.com/r/Python/comments/abc123")
submission.comments.replace_more(limit=0)
for comment in submission.comments.list():
    print(f"  {comment.author}: {comment.body[:100]}")

Limitations: No historical bulk search. No access to deleted/removed content. Comment search is not available via the API (you can only fetch comments on specific posts). Personal use scripts only on the free tier.

Best for: Compliant applications, bots, and moderation tools. If you need to stay within Reddit's Terms of Service, this is the only safe option.

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2. SearchHive ScrapeForge

SearchHive's ScrapeForge API converts any web page — including Reddit pages — into structured markdown. This works for public Reddit content that doesn't require authentication.

Cost: Part of SearchHive's unified platform — 500 free credits/month, then $9/5K. One credit per page scrape.

Python usage:

from searchhive import ScrapeForge

client = ScrapeForge(api_key="your-key")

# Scrape a Reddit post and its comments as markdown
result = client.scrape("https://reddit.com/r/Python/comments/abc123")
print(result["markdown"])

# Scrape a subreddit front page
posts = client.scrape("https://reddit.com/r/programming/hot")
print(posts["markdown"][:500])

Limitations: Only accesses publicly available content. Cannot authenticate or access private subreddits. Rate limits apply based on your plan.

Best for: Quick extraction of Reddit page content for LLM pipelines, research summaries, or data enrichment. Useful when you already use SearchHive for other scraping tasks.

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3. Apify Reddit Scraper

Apify offers pre-built Reddit scraper actors that handle proxy rotation, CAPTCHAs, and Reddit's bot detection. One of the more battle-tested paid options.

Cost: Apify Free tier ($5 credit/month). Starter $49/month. Pay-per-use beyond that.

Python usage:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("your-token")

run = client.actor("trudax/reddit-scraper").call(run_input={
    "startUrls": [
        {"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/machinelearning/top/?t=week"}
    ],
    "maxPosts": 50,
    "maxCommentsPerPost": 20
})

dataset = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in dataset.iterate_items():
    print(item.get("title", ""), item.get("score", 0))

Best for: Teams that need to scrape Reddit at scale without maintaining their own proxy infrastructure. Apify handles the anti-bot measures for you.

See our Apify alternatives comparison.

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4. ScraperAPI

ScraperAPI is a general-purpose proxy API — not Reddit-specific. You pass a Reddit URL and get the rendered HTML back.

Cost: Hobby $49/month (100K requests), Startup $149/month (500K).

Python usage:

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

resp = requests.get(
    "http://api.scraperapi.com",
    params={"api_key": "your-key", "url": "https://reddit.com/r/Python/", "render": "true"}
)

soup = BeautifulSoup(resp.text, "html.parser")
for post in soup.select("shreddit-post"):
    print(post.get("post-title", "Untitled"))

Limitations: You get raw HTML — parsing is on you. Reddit's HTML structure changes frequently. May encounter rate-limit pages (429) or login walls.

Best for: Teams already using ScraperAPI for other sites who want to add Reddit scraping without a new vendor.

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5. RapidAPI Reddit Endpoints

RapidAPI hosts dozens of Reddit API wrappers created by third-party developers. Quality varies enormously.

Cost: Free tiers typically offer 100-1,000 requests/month. Paid tiers $10-$100+/month.

Major caveat: Many Reddit endpoints on RapidAPI went offline after Reddit's 2023 API changes. Those still running either wrap the official API (using their own key pool) or scrape with proxies. Quality is inconsistent, and some endpoints may return stale or fabricated data.

Best for: Prototyping only. Test any endpoint thoroughly before relying on it for production.

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6. PRAW (Detailed Usage Patterns)

PRAW deserves its own deeper look because it remains the gold standard for compliant Reddit interaction.

Advanced usage:

import praw
import json
from datetime import datetime

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    client_id="your-id",
    client_secret="your-secret",
    user_agent="research-bot/1.0"
)

# Collect structured data from a subreddit
subreddit = reddit.subreddit("datascience")
data = []

for post in subreddit.top(time_filter="week", limit=50):
    data.append({
        "title": post.title,
        "score": post.score,
        "num_comments": post.num_comments,
        "author": str(post.author),
        "url": post.url,
        "selftext": post.selftext[:500],
        "created_utc": datetime.fromtimestamp(post.created_utc).isoformat(),
        "subreddit": post.subreddit.display_name
    })

with open("reddit_data.json", "w") as f:
    json.dump(data, f, indent=2)

Tip: PRAW handles rate limiting automatically — it sleeps when you hit limits. For faster collection, use asyncpraw with multiple connections.

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What About Pushshift?

Pushshift was the backbone of Reddit research for years. It archived billions of posts and comments with full-text search and time-range filtering. In June 2023, Reddit terminated Pushshift's access. A limited read-only version was restored for subreddit moderators only — not usable for general research or scraping.

As of 2026, there is no replacement for Pushshift's historical archive. No other service offers searchable historical Reddit data at that scale. This remains the biggest gap in the Reddit data ecosystem.

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Comparison Table

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Our Recommendation

For compliant use, stick with PRAW + the official Reddit API. It's free, well-documented, and won't get your application blocked.

For AI/LLM workflows that need Reddit content in structured form, SearchHive ScrapeForge provides the cleanest integration — markdown output ready for embedding or RAG pipelines.

For bulk collection beyond API limits, Apify handles proxy rotation and bot detection so you don't have to.

Whatever approach you choose, respect Reddit's rate limits and ToS. Reddit actively blocks and bans scrapers that violate their policies.

Get started with SearchHive's free tier — 500 credits/month for Reddit scraping and more.