Stack Overflow Questions Scraper

Stack Overflow Questions Scraper

Scrape Stack Overflow questions by tag, sort order, and site, up to a million per run. Every question comes with its title, tags, score, answer count, and link. No API key or registration. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

Stack Overflow's official API needs an app key and has strict rate limits that slow down bulk collection. This Actor reads the public question feeds directly, filtered by tag and sorted by activity, votes, or date, and returns each match in one fixed schema. It works across the entire Stack Exchange network, from Stack Overflow to Ask Ubuntu and Server Fault.

Who uses it	What they scrape Stack Overflow for
Developer tool builders	Curate a dataset of common coding problems to train a Q&A model.
Technical content marketers	Find trending topics and unanswered questions to plan blog posts and tutorials.
Engineering managers	Track which technologies are generating the most questions to guide team skill development.
Recruiters	Identify active experts in a niche technology by the tags they frequent.

What it does

This Actor collects Stack Overflow questions by tag and sort order, and returns each one as a flat row.

• 🏷️ Tag filter: collect only questions tagged with a specific technology, like javascript, python, or reactjs.
• 📊 Flexible sorting: order results by recent activity, highest votes, newest, hot, or top of the week or month.
• 🌐 Multi-site support: scrape from Stack Overflow or any of 12 other Stack Exchange sites, including Super User, Server Fault, and Ask Ubuntu.
• 📦 Bulk collection: pull up to one million questions in a single run for large-scale analysis.

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

What you can do with Stack Overflow data

🤖 Build a coding Q&A dataset.

A machine learning engineer scrapes 100,000 python questions sorted by votes to fine-tune a code-completion model on real-world problems.

📝 Find content gaps for technical blogging.

A developer advocate pulls unanswered reactjs questions from the past month to create tutorials that directly address community needs.

📈 Monitor technology trends.

A CTO collects weekly hot questions across multiple tags to see which frameworks are gaining traction before making a hiring decision.

🔍 Source candidate leads.

A technical recruiter scrapes questions tagged with a niche database to find and reach out to the most active answerers.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Bypass the official API's registration and rate limits.
Fixed schema	Every question arrives with the same fields, ready for analysis.
Network-wide	One Actor for Stack Overflow, Super User, Server Fault, and more.
Large scale	Collect up to a million questions per run without throttling.

How it compares

This Actor focuses on high-volume question collection by tag and sort order, while the Stack Exchange Scraper uses the official API for deeper content across more sites.

Feature	ParseForge	Stack Exchange Scraper
No API key required	Yes	Yes
Up to 1,000,000 questions per run	Yes	Not listed
Full question body text	Not listed	Yes
Answers included	Not listed	Yes
170+ Stack Exchange sites	13 sites	Yes
Tag filtering	Yes	Yes

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a tag filter, a Stack Exchange site, and a sort order, 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
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.10
1,000 results	$21.00
10,000 results	$210.00

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 Overflow 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 Overflow 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/stackoverflow-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 that your tag filter matches real tags on the selected site. Try leaving the tag blank to confirm the site returns questions, then narrow down.

The run stopped before reaching my maxItems.

The Actor stops when there are no more questions matching your filter. Try a broader tag or a different sort order to reach a larger pool.

I'm getting duplicate questions.

If you run the Actor multiple times with overlapping sort windows, some questions may appear again. Deduplicate on the question ID or link in post-processing.

The data looks different from the website.

Sort orders like 'hot' and 'week' are relative to the moment the run starts. Run it again to capture the latest rankings.

Can I get questions from a custom Stack Exchange site not in the list?

The site selector is limited to the 13 listed options. For other Stack Exchange sites, you would need a different configuration or a custom Actor.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a Stack Overflow API key?	No. This Actor reads the public question feeds directly, so no registration or API key is required.
Can I scrape answers as well as questions?	This Actor focuses on questions. Each result includes the answer count and a link to the question page, but not the full answer bodies.
What Stack Exchange sites are supported?	You can choose from Stack Overflow, Super User, Server Fault, Ask Ubuntu, Mathematics, Unix & Linux, TeX-LaTeX, Ask Different, Arqade, Webmasters, GIS, Electrical Engineering, and Data Science.
How many questions can I get in one run?	You can set the maximum up to 1,000,000 questions. The actual number returned depends on how many match your tag and site filters.
Can I filter by more than one tag?	The current input accepts a single tag string. For multi-tag filtering, you can run the Actor multiple times with different tags and merge the results.
What sort orders are available?	You can sort by recent activity, highest votes, newest, hot questions, top of the current week, or top of the current month.
What format does the data export to?	You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify platform.
Does this scrape the full question body?	The dataset includes the question title, tags, score, answer count, view count, and a direct link. The full body text is not included in the flat row.
Is this legal?	This Actor accesses publicly available web pages. You are responsible for complying with Stack Exchange's terms of service and robots.txt for your use case.
Can I schedule this to run daily?	Yes. You can set up a recurring schedule in Apify to collect new questions automatically at any interval.

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.