Stack Exchange Questions Scraper

Stack Exchange Questions Scraper

Scrape Stack Exchange questions from any site, search term, or tag, up to a million per run. Each question comes with its score, tags, and full metadata. No API key or registration. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Stack Exchange's official API needs an app key and has strict rate limits. This reads the public question feeds directly, filtered by site, search term, tags, score, and sort order, and returns each match in one fixed schema. It works across Stack Overflow, Super User, Ask Ubuntu, and 60+ other Stack Exchange sites.

Who uses it	What they scrape Stack Exchange for
Market researchers	Which technical topics are gaining traction across developer communities
Developer tool builders	What problems users report with a library or framework
Technical content writers	Which questions are unanswered and worth writing a tutorial about
Data scientists	A labeled corpus of questions and tags for NLP experiments
Community managers	Which tags are active and which are going quiet

What it does

This Actor collects Stack Exchange questions by site, search term, and tags, and returns each one as a flat row.

• 🔍 Search by term: words that must appear in the question title, like 'python async'.
• 🏷️ Filter by tags: semicolon-separated tags, e.g. 'python;asyncio'.
• 🌐 Pick any site: Stack Overflow, Super User, Ask Ubuntu, MathOverflow, and 60+ more.
• 📊 Sort and filter: order by activity, creation, votes, or relevance, and set a minimum score.
• 📦 Bulk export: collect up to 1,000,000 questions per run, then export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Stack Exchange data

📈 Track topics and trends.

A market researcher runs the Actor weekly on Stack Overflow with a search term like 'generative ai' and a minimum score of 10 to see which questions are gaining votes.

🧩 Find pain points for a library.

A developer tool builder scrapes questions tagged 'react' and 'hooks' to see what users struggle with most.

✍️ Source content ideas.

A technical writer searches for unanswered questions with a high score on Ask Ubuntu and writes tutorials that answer them.

🤖 Build a training dataset.

A data scientist collects questions and tags from Mathematics and Cross Validated to train a topic classifier.

🛠️ Monitor community health.

A community manager scrapes all questions from a niche site like Raspberry Pi and sorts by creation date to see if activity is rising or falling.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	No registration, no OAuth, no rate limits to manage
One fixed schema	Every question returns the same flat fields, ready for analysis
Any Stack Exchange site	Stack Overflow, Super User, Ask Ubuntu, and 60+ more
Bulk collection	Up to 1,000,000 questions per run

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Stack Exchange the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	Stack Exchange Questions Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Stack Exchange changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a site, a search term, and tags, alone or together, and filters run as each question is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
 "maxItems": 10,
 "query": "python async",
 "site": "stackoverflow",
 "sort": "activity",
 "minScore": 0
}

Only the popular results:

{
 "maxItems": 200,
 "query": "python async",
 "site": "stackoverflow",
 "sort": "activity",
 "minScore": 10
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.01467 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$1.47
1,000 results	$14.67
10,000 results	$146.70

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Stack Exchange Questions Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Stack Exchange through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/stackexchange-questions-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check your search term and tags. The search term must appear in the question title, and tags are ANDed together. Try removing the minimum score filter or switching to a more general site like Stack Overflow.

Why are results different from the Stack Exchange website?

The Actor uses the public question feed, which may lag the live site by a few minutes. Also, the sort order you choose affects which questions appear first.

Can I scrape non-English Stack Exchange sites?

Yes. The site list includes Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish Stack Overflow sites. Select the one you need from the dropdown.

Why did the run stop before reaching my maximum questions?

The Actor stops when there are no more questions matching your filters. Try broadening your search term, removing tags, or lowering the minimum score.

How do I get the data into a spreadsheet?

After the run finishes, open the dataset in Apify and click Export. Choose CSV or Excel to download a file you can open in any spreadsheet app.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a Stack Exchange API key?	No. This Actor reads the public question feeds directly, so there is no API key, OAuth, or registration.
Which Stack Exchange sites can I scrape?	You can choose from over 60 sites, including Stack Overflow, Super User, Server Fault, Ask Ubuntu, MathOverflow, Mathematics, and many more.
Can I search for a specific phrase?	Yes. The search term field matches words in the question title. For example, 'python async' returns questions whose titles contain both words.
How do I filter by multiple tags?	Use semicolons between tags, like 'python;asyncio'. The Actor returns questions that have all of those tags.
What does the minimum score filter do?	It keeps only questions with at least that many votes. Set it to 0 to include everything.
Can I sort the results?	Yes. Sort by last activity, creation date, votes, or relevance.
How many questions can I get in one run?	Up to 1,000,000. Set the maximum questions field to the number you need.
What format is the output?	The Actor returns a flat dataset that you can export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform.
Does it scrape answers too?	No. This Actor collects questions only. Each question includes its score, tags, and metadata, but not the answers.
Can I run it on a schedule?	Yes. Use Apify's scheduler to run the Actor daily, weekly, or at any interval you choose.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Stack Exchange, Inc. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.