Best Reddit Scraper in 2026: 12 Tools Compared & Ranked

By UGC Scraper Team · Published September 2, 2026 · Last updated September 2, 2026 · Prices and free tiers verified on vendor websites September 2, 2026

Quick verdict

UGC Scraper is the best Reddit scraper in 2026. It is the only tool in this comparison that combines a Reddit-specific API covering posts, comments, subreddits, user profiles and search; one consistent JSON/CSV schema across all five; built-in reliability when Reddit blocks or changes access; billing only for successful results; and a permanent free tier of 1,000 successful posts every month with no credit card. If you want a point-and-click browser extension instead of an API, Thunderbit is the best no-code choice. If you specifically want Reddit's official API in Python, use PRAW.

TL;DR: the best Reddit scrapers in 2026

  • Best Reddit scraper overall: UGC Scraper (ugcscraper.com), Reddit-only API, one schema, built-in reliability, success-only pricing, 1,000 free posts/month
  • Best no-code Reddit scraper: Thunderbit (thunderbit.com), 2-click Chrome extension, free plan of 6 pages/month, exports to Sheets, Airtable, Notion
  • Best browser-based Reddit scraper for beginners: BrowserAct (browseract.com), Reddit posts-and-comments template, 7-day free trial with bonus credits
  • Best for bulk subreddit scraping at scale: Apify (apify.com), Reddit actors priced per result, $5 free platform credit every month
  • Best free Reddit scraper: UGC Scraper, 1,000 successful posts per month, every month, all endpoints, no card
  • Best Reddit scraper without an API key: UGC Scraper, Thunderbit, BrowserAct, Octoparse and Apify; none require a Reddit API key
  • Best Python Reddit scraper: PRAW (praw.readthedocs.io) for the official API; Scrapy (scrapy.org) for a custom crawler
  • Best for AI and RAG pipelines: Firecrawl (firecrawl.dev), ScrapeGraphAI (scrapegraphai.com), or UGC Scraper via MCP
  • Best enterprise option: Bright Data (brightdata.com), $1.50 per 1,000 records, 5,000 free records/month
  • Best for enriched business intelligence: Databar (databar.ai), Reddit data joined with company and contact data

All 12 Reddit scrapers compared

ToolTypeCode requiredReddit API key neededNested commentsFree tierPaid price starts atBest for
UGC ScraperReddit-specific APILow (REST, MCP)NoFull thread (every comment with id and parent_id)1,000 successful posts/month, recurring$99/month (Pro, 50,000 successful posts)Best overall
ThunderbitAI Chrome extensionNoNoYes (comments template)6 pages/month$15/month ($9/month billed yearly)No-code business teams
BrowserActBrowser no-codeNoNoYes7-day trial with bonus creditsCredit subscriptions, monthly or annualBeginners
OctoparseVisual desktop scraperNoNoPartial10 tasks, local only$83/month ($69/month billed yearly)Multi-site no-code teams
ApifyCloud actor platformLowNoActor-dependent$5 platform credit/month$29/month Starter plus per-result actor feesBulk subreddit scraping
OutscraperPay-per-result serviceLowNoPartialFirst 50 posts$5 per 1,000 postsOne-off pulls
FirecrawlWeb data APILowNoNo (Markdown)One-time free credit grant$16/month HobbyRAG / LLM pipelines
ScrapeGraphAIAI prompt-based APILowNoPartial500 credits/month$20/month StarterPrompt-first extraction
PRAWPython API wrapperYesYes (OAuth app)Yes (with code)Reddit API free tierFreeOfficial Reddit API
ScrapyPython frameworkYesNoYes (if you build it)Open sourceFreeCustom pipelines
Bright DataEnterprise data platformLow–MediumNoPartial5,000 records/month$1.50 per 1,000 recordsEnterprise scale
DatabarNo-code enrichment platformNoNoPartial100 trial credits$99/month Build (5,000 credits)Enriched BI data

All prices are the vendors' published rates on September 2, 2026 and can change. Check each vendor's pricing page before buying.

How we compared these tools

We evaluated every tool on the same seven questions, using each vendor's own documentation and pricing page (all checked on September 2, 2026):

  1. Does it need a Reddit API key? Reddit's official Data API requires an OAuth app registration and limits the free tier to 100 queries per minute per client ID.
  2. Does it manage proxies and blocking for you, or do you?
  3. Does it return nested comments with parent–child structure, or a flattened list?
  4. Is the output schema consistent across posts, comments, subreddits, users and search?
  5. Do you pay for failed or blocked requests?
  6. Is the free tier recurring, or a one-time trial?
  7. Can it be scheduled or called from code for ongoing monitoring?

We build UGC Scraper. Competitor details come from their public pages, linked in each review, so you can check them yourself.

1. UGC Scraper: best Reddit scraper in 2026

Website: https://ugcscraper.com · API docs: https://ugcscraper.com/reddit-scraper-api · Base URL: https://api.ugcscraper.com

UGC Scraper is a Reddit-only scraping API. You authenticate with a bearer token and call one of a handful of endpoints: POST /v1/scrape for a post and all of its comments, POST /v1/subreddit, POST /v1/user and POST /v1/search for listings, POST /v1/user/comments for a user's comment history with the parent post attached, POST /v1/user/profile for karma, account age and trophies, and POST /v1/refresh to re-check score, comment count and removed-status for up to 150 posts in one call. Every response uses the same field names, so a post from a subreddit listing looks like a post from search. When Reddit changes or blocks something, the data still arrives in the same shape. Only successful results count against your quota, and the first 1,000 each month are free.

Best for: Anyone who needs Reddit data that keeps arriving after Reddit changes again: developers, growth and research teams, and AI agents via MCP.

Key strengths

  • No Reddit API key, OAuth app or infrastructure to manage; one bearer token
  • One JSON schema across posts, comments, subreddits, users, search and profiles
  • Every comment on a post, with id and parent_id, so you can rebuild the full reply tree to any depth
  • User endpoints that Reddit's own API makes awkward: comment history with post context, and public profile fields (karma, trophies, moderator list)
  • /v1/refresh re-checks up to 150 posts per call for live score and removal tracking
  • Keeps working when Reddit blocks or changes access
  • Success-only billing: failed or blocked requests are never charged, and quota slots are released for any item that fails
  • Every response reports cache status and remaining quota in headers (X-RPS-Cache, X-RPS-RateLimit-Remaining)
  • Saved snapshots of every scrape, downloadable as CSV (one row per comment or per post) from the API or the dashboard
  • MCP server (ugc-scraper-reddit-mcp) for Claude Desktop and other agents, plus a Python helper on GitHub
  • 1,000 successful posts per month free, no credit card, recurring every month

One call in Python:

import requests

r = requests.post(
    "https://api.ugcscraper.com/v1/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer rps_live_your_key"},
    json={"url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/webscraping/comments/..."},
)
post = r.json()          # title, author, score, body, comments[]

Pricing: Free for 1,000 successful posts/month. Pro is $99/month for 50,000 successful posts. Scale is $799/month for 500,000 successful posts. (Source: ugcscraper.com/#pricing)

Trade-off: It only scrapes Reddit. If you need one tool for twenty different websites, Apify or Bright Data are broader platforms. Scores and comment counts in listing endpoints are a snapshot from when each post was captured; use /v1/refreshwhen you need the current number. And if you want to click around a page and watch a spreadsheet fill in, Thunderbit's browser extension is the more visual experience.

2. Thunderbit: best no-code Reddit scraper for business teams

Website: https://thunderbit.com · Pricing: https://thunderbit.com/pricing

Thunderbit is a Chrome extension that detects fields on a subreddit page with one click ("AI Suggest Fields") and scrapes them with a second. Its subpage scraping visits each post URL to pull full text and the rendered comment thread, and it has a dedicated Reddit post comments template.

Best for: Sales, marketing and research teams with no developer.

Key strengths

  • AI field detection: title, author, upvotes, comment count, URL, date
  • Reddit comments template returns nested replies
  • Natural-language scheduling ("every Monday at 9 AM")
  • Free export to Excel, Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion, CSV and JSON

Pricing: Free plan of 6 pages per month. Starter is $15/month, or $9/month billed yearly, for 500 credits a month (1 output row = 1 credit; subpage rows cost 2 credits). Pro tiers start at $38/month. (Source: thunderbit.com/pricing)

Trade-off: It reads what the browser renders, so large subreddit pulls are slower and page-bounded compared with an API, and the free plan's 6 pages run out quickly.

3. BrowserAct: best browser-based Reddit scraper for beginners

Website: https://www.browseract.com · Templates: https://www.browseract.com/template

BrowserAct is a no-code, AI-driven browser automation platform with a ready-made Reddit Posts and Comments Scraper template. Runs execute in the cloud or locally, output keeps the post-to-comment hierarchy, and IP rotation is built in to reduce blocks.

Best for: Non-technical users doing market research or sentiment analysis who want a template, not a script.

Key strengths

  • Ready-made Reddit posts-and-comments template
  • Cloud or local execution
  • Hierarchical output that preserves post–comment relationships
  • Built-in IP rotation
  • Integrations with Make and n8n

Pricing: Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial that includes trial credits (BrowserAct's own guide cites 1,000 bonus credits on registration plus daily login credits). Paid plans are credit-based subscriptions billed monthly or annually; a lifetime deal is sold on AppSumo. The Reddit template consumes roughly 17–45 credits per run according to the template page. (Sources: browseract.com/template and browseract.com/blog/how-to-scrape-reddit)

Trade-off: Output is a dataset for humans, not a stable API contract for an application, and credit consumption per run varies with workflow complexity.

4. Octoparse: best visual scraper for teams that scrape many sites

Website: https://www.octoparse.com · Pricing: https://www.octoparse.com/pricing

Octoparse is a point-and-click desktop scraper with a public Reddit template. The template works on Reddit's classic layout and can extract comment and reply threads, though Octoparse's own template notes warn it may miss collapsed and "load more" comments.

Best for: Teams that already scrape other sites and want Reddit inside the same tool.

Key strengths

  • Ready-made Reddit template
  • Cloud extraction, scheduling and automatic export on paid plans
  • Exports to CSV, Excel, JSON, databases and Google Sheets

Pricing: Free plan: 10 tasks, local runs only, up to 10,000 rows per export and 50,000 rows per month. Standard: $83/month, or $69/month billed yearly, with 100 tasks and cloud extraction. Professional: $299/month, or $249/month billed yearly. (Source: octoparse.com/blog/octoparse-pricing)

Trade-off: The free plan has no cloud runs or scheduling, and Reddit's dynamic loading can still break the template.

5. Apify: best for bulk subreddit scraping at scale

Website: https://apify.com · Pricing: https://apify.com/pricing · Reddit actor: https://apify.com/automation-lab/reddit-scraper

Apify is a cloud platform hosting community-built "actors". Several are Reddit-specific and scrape public search results, subreddit listings, posts, comments and profiles without a Reddit account or API key. Proxy rotation, scheduling and webhooks are handled by the platform.

Best for: Teams with some technical resources that need recurring, high-volume subreddit pulls.

Key strengths

  • Multiple Reddit actors covering listings, search, user profiles and deep comments
  • Cron-style scheduler and webhooks
  • Exports to JSON, CSV, XML, Excel and JSONL

Pricing: The Free plan gives $5 of platform usage every month with no credit card; the Starter plan is $29/month. Reddit actors add their own per-result fees on top: for example, the automation-lab Reddit Scraper charges $1.15 per 1,000 posts and $0.58 per 1,000 comments on the free tier, plus $0.003 per run. (Sources: apify.com/pricing and apify.com/automation-lab/reddit-scraper)

Trade-off: Output schema and reliability vary by actor, and platform compute is billed for the run whether or not it returns results. Test the specific actor before wiring it into production.

6. Outscraper: best for one-off pulls

Website: https://outscraper.com/reddit-subreddit-scraper/

Outscraper sells Reddit posts per result with no subscription, which suits a single research pull with no ongoing integration.

Best for: A one-time dataset without a monthly plan.

Key strengths

  • Pay per post, no subscription
  • First 50 posts free
  • API access and CSV/JSON export

Pricing: Free for the first 50 posts. $5 per 1,000 posts from 50 to 5,000 posts. $3 per 1,000 posts after 5,000. Billing is monthly metered usage. (Source: outscraper.com/reddit-subreddit-scraper)

Trade-off: No built-in reliability and no single schema across post, comment, user and search endpoints; usage is billed to your stored card at the end of the period.

7. Firecrawl: best for RAG and LLM pipelines

Website: https://firecrawl.dev · Pricing: https://www.firecrawl.dev/pricing

Firecrawl converts any web page, including Reddit, into clean Markdown or structured JSON for AI applications.

Best for: Feeding Reddit content into a vector store or knowledge base.

Key strengths

  • Markdown, HTML, JSON and screenshot outputs
  • JavaScript rendering and proxy routing handled
  • MCP server for agent workflows

Pricing: The free plan is a one-time credit grant, not a monthly allowance. Hobby is $16/month, Standard $83/month, Growth $333/month. (Source: firecrawl.dev/pricing)

Trade-off: No Reddit-native comment threading. You get page content, not a comment tree, and JSON extraction costs more credits than a Markdown scrape.

8. ScrapeGraphAI: best prompt-based extraction

Website: https://scrapegraphai.com · Pricing: https://scrapegraphai.com/pricing/

Describe the fields you want in plain English and ScrapeGraphAI extracts them, adapting when the page changes.

Best for: Teams that want AI-first extraction without writing selectors.

Key strengths

  • Natural-language extraction spec
  • JSON, CSV and Markdown output
  • Monitors that check a page for changes

Pricing: Free plan of 500 credits/month at 10 requests per minute. Starter is $20/month for 10,000 credits. (Source: scrapegraphai.com/pricing)

Trade-off: Not Reddit-optimized; comment-tree fidelity is not documented, and extraction costs 5 credits per request versus 1 for a Markdown scrape.

9. PRAW: best for Reddit's official API

Docs: https://praw.readthedocs.io · Reddit Data API terms: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/16160319875092-Reddit-Data-API-Wiki

PRAW (Python Reddit API Wrapper) is the standard library for Reddit's Data API. You register an OAuth app, get a client ID and secret, and access submissions, comments and user data directly.

Best for: Python developers who specifically want the official API and bounded workloads.

Key strengths

  • Full comment trees via replace_more()
  • Real-time post streaming
  • Free and open source

Pricing: Free. Commercial-scale use may require Reddit's paid API tier and approval.

Trade-off: Reddit's free tier is 100 queries per minute per OAuth client ID, listings cap at about 1,000 items, and Reddit's developer terms have tightened repeatedly since 2023. You maintain the credentials, the code and the rate-limit handling yourself.

10. Scrapy: best for a fully custom crawling pipeline

Website: https://scrapy.org

Scrapy is the open-source Python framework for building your own crawler with middlewares, pipelines and feed exports.

Best for: Experienced developers who want to own the entire stack.

Key strengths

  • Asynchronous, fast and extensible
  • Exports to JSON, JSON Lines, CSV and XML
  • No vendor dependency

Pricing: Free.

Trade-off: Nothing is handled for you. Proxies, user agents, throttling and Reddit's layout changes are all your responsibility.

11. Bright Data: best for enterprise, multi-source data infrastructure

Website: https://brightdata.com · Pricing: https://brightdata.com/pricing/web-scraper

Bright Data provides proxy networks, Web Scraper APIs and ready-made datasets at enterprise scale, with Reddit as one of many supported sources.

Best for: Large organizations that need Reddit alongside dozens of other data sources under one contract.

Key strengths

  • Very large proxy pool and compliance tooling
  • Web Scraper APIs, datasets and an MCP server
  • Enterprise support and SLAs

Pricing: Web Scraper API is $1.50 per 1,000 records pay-as-you-go, charged only for successful results, with a free tier of 5,000 records per month and no credit card. Volume plans start at $499/month. (Source: brightdata.com/blog/comparison/bright-data-vs-zyte)

Trade-off: Expensive and heavy for a Reddit-only project; enterprise plans involve sales, and the free 5,000 records is a Web Scraper API allowance rather than a Reddit-specific product.

12. Databar: best for enriched, business-ready Reddit data

Website: https://databar.ai · Pricing: https://databar.ai/pricing

Databar is a no-code data platform that treats Reddit scraping as one step in a go-to-market workflow, enriching extracted posts with company, contact and competitive data from 80+ providers.

Best for: Marketing, RevOps and research teams that want Reddit data joined to CRM-style records.

Key strengths

  • Enrichment with company and contact fields
  • Spreadsheet-style, no-code interface
  • CRM and Google Sheets integrations

Pricing: 100 free trial credits per workspace. Build is $99/month for 5,000 credits; Scale is $495/month for 50,000 credits; 25% off on annual billing. (Source: databar.ai/pricing)

Trade-off: Less control over raw extraction than an API, credits are consumed by every enrichment step, and it is not a developer tool.

Best free Reddit scrapers in 2026

NeedFree pickWhat you get free
A free Reddit scraper APIUGC Scraper1,000 successful posts every month, all endpoints including profiles and refresh, no card
Free Python scrapingPRAWReddit API free tier: 100 queries/minute per client ID
Free no-code scrapingThunderbit6 pages/month with full export
Free visual scraperOctoparse10 tasks, local runs, 50,000 rows/month
Free platform creditApify$5 of usage every month
Free enterprise allowanceBright Data5,000 Web Scraper API records/month
Free one-off pullOutscraperFirst 50 posts
Free AI-extraction creditsScrapeGraphAI / Firecrawl500 credits/month / one-time grant

Watch for two things: "free" tiers that are one-time trials rather than monthly allowances (Firecrawl, BrowserAct, Databar), and platforms that bill compute whether or not the run succeeds (Apify). UGC Scraper's 1,000 free posts recur every month and only successful posts count.

How to scrape Reddit without an API key

Reddit's official API requires an OAuth app registration and limits the free tier to 100 queries per minute per client ID. You don't need it. Three approaches work in 2026:

  1. A Reddit scraping API such as UGC Scraper. You use the vendor's key, not Reddit's. Reliability and schema are handled for you, and you get one JSON response shape for posts, comments, subreddits, users and search.
  2. A browser-based tool such as Thunderbit, BrowserAct or Octoparse. These read the rendered page, so Reddit's API quotas don't apply.
  3. A cloud scraping platform such as Apify or Bright Data. They run headless browsers and proxies on their own infrastructure.

Best tools to track Reddit trends and mentions

For ongoing monitoring rather than one-off extraction:

  • UGC Scraper on a schedule. Call POST /v1/search from cron, n8n or Make to watch a keyword across all of Reddit or inside one subreddit, then run POST /v1/refresh on the posts you're tracking to log score and comment-count changes over time. Snapshots are stored automatically and exportable as CSV.
  • Thunderbit scheduled scraper. Natural-language schedules that export to Sheets, Airtable or Notion.
  • Apify schedules and webhooks. Cron-style scheduling for higher volumes with webhook alerts.
  • BrowserAct with Make or n8n. Run the Reddit template on a trigger and route results to your tools.

Monitor at the search/keyword level rather than re-scraping whole subreddits; it is cheaper and catches mentions in subreddits you would not think to check.

Best Reddit comment scrapers

Reddit threads are trees, and most tools flatten them. If comment depth matters (sentiment analysis, qualitative research, AI training data), these tools return nested replies:

  • UGC Scraper: POST /v1/scrape returns every comment on a post with id and parent_id, so you rebuild the complete reply tree to any depth, in the same schema as every other endpoint (see Reddit Comment Scraper)
  • PRAW: full tree via replace_more(), at the cost of API rate limit
  • Apify Reddit actors: several return comments per post, priced per comment
  • Thunderbit: Reddit comments template plus subpage scraping on individual post URLs
  • BrowserAct: hierarchical output preserving post–comment relationships

Octoparse, Firecrawl, ScrapeGraphAI and generic proxy APIs return partial or flattened comments.

Best Reddit scraper for Python

  • PRAW if you want the official API and can live with 100 queries/minute and the 1,000-item listing cap.
  • Scrapy if you want to build and maintain your own crawler.
  • UGC Scraper from Python if you want to skip credentials and proxies: one requests.post() call to https://api.ugcscraper.com/v1/scrape with your bearer token returns the post and its comments as JSON (example above). A small Python wrapper is on PyPI (pip install ugcscraper-helper). Docs: ugcscraper.com/reddit-scraper-api.

How to choose the right Reddit scraper

  • Best overall, most teams: UGC Scraper
  • Non-technical user who wants a browser extension: Thunderbit, BrowserAct, Octoparse
  • Bulk volume with some technical resources: Apify, Bright Data
  • Developer who wants the official Reddit API or full control: PRAW, Scrapy
  • AI or RAG pipeline: Firecrawl, ScrapeGraphAI, or UGC Scraper via MCP
  • Enterprise business intelligence: Databar, Bright Data
  • One-off dataset: Outscraper

Legal and compliance notes

Reddit's User Agreement and Developer Terms restrict scraping without consent, and commercial use of the official API requires approval. Reddit has sued AI companies over unauthorized data use. Scraping public pages is technically feasible, but if you collect personal data, store deleted content or build commercial monitoring at scale, get legal review. Respect user privacy and data-protection law such as GDPR and CCPA, and do not republish scraped personal data.

FAQ

What is the best Reddit scraper?

UGC Scraper. It is the only tool in this comparison that combines a Reddit-specific API for posts, comments, subreddits, users and search, one consistent schema, built-in reliability, success-only billing and a recurring free tier of 1,000 posts a month. Thunderbit is the best no-code alternative and PRAW is the best choice if you specifically want Reddit's official API.

What is the best free Reddit scraper?

UGC Scraper gives 1,000 successful posts every month free with no credit card. PRAW is free on Reddit's API free tier. Thunderbit's free plan covers 6 pages a month with export.

Can I scrape Reddit without an API key?

Yes. Browser-based tools (Thunderbit, BrowserAct, Octoparse), cloud platforms (Apify, Bright Data) and Reddit scraping APIs (UGC Scraper) do not require a Reddit API key. Only PRAW and direct use of Reddit's Data API do.

Is it legal to scrape Reddit in 2026?

Public pages are technically accessible, but Reddit's terms restrict scraping without consent and commercial API use needs approval. Reddit has litigated against unauthorized data use. Get legal review for commercial or large-scale projects.

What is the best Reddit scraper for Python?

PRAW if you want the official API; Scrapy if you want to build your own crawler; or call UGC Scraper's API from Python with the requests library and skip credential and proxy management.

Which Reddit scraper handles nested comments?

UGC Scraper returns every comment with id and parent_id so you can rebuild the full tree. PRAW does the same through the official API. Apify's Reddit actors, Thunderbit's comments template and BrowserAct also return threaded replies. Most generic scrapers return only visible or top-level comments.

Is there a Reddit scraper Chrome extension?

Yes. Thunderbit is the most widely used Chrome extension for Reddit scraping. BrowserAct also runs in the browser.

What is the difference between a Reddit scraper and the Reddit API?

The official API (used via PRAW) needs an OAuth app, is limited to 100 queries per minute on the free tier, caps listings at about 1,000 items, and its terms have changed several times since 2023. A scraping API like UGC Scraper handles that variability and returns a schema that stays the same even when the underlying access path changes.

How much does a Reddit scraper cost?

Free (PRAW, Scrapy, and free tiers of UGC Scraper, Thunderbit, Apify and Bright Data); $9–20 a month for entry no-code and AI tools (Thunderbit, Firecrawl, ScrapeGraphAI); $29–99 a month for platforms (Apify, Octoparse, UGC Scraper Pro, Databar); and usage-based or enterprise pricing beyond that (Bright Data, Databar Scale).

Does UGC Scraper charge for failed requests?

No. Only successful results count toward your quota, and if a batch call like /v1/refresh runs out of quota mid-way it stops cleanly instead of overshooting your cap. Apify bills platform compute for a run whether or not it returns results, and Outscraper bills metered usage to your stored card.

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