ParseForge
Techmeme Scraper
parseforge/techmeme-scraper
News & mediaDeveloper toolsOther
Scrapes the Techmeme homepage and returns each ranked story as a flat row with its headline, URL, author, publication, editorial excerpt, and related coverage links.
- Total users
- 2
- Monthly active
- 1
- Total runs
- 99
- Bookmarked
- 0
- Rating
- Not rated yet
- Last modified
- 9 days ago
Overview
Techmeme Scraper
Scrape the Techmeme homepage for ranked tech news stories, headlines, and editorial context. Each story includes its author, publication, excerpt, and related coverage links. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
Techmeme's algorithmically curated front page is the tech industry's daily briefing, but there is no public API to access its ranked story list. This Actor reads the homepage directly and returns every headline, the editorial excerpt, the author and publication, and the cluster of related coverage links, all in a flat, structured row.
| Who uses it | What they scrape Techmeme for |
|---|---|
| PR professionals | Monitor which tech stories and outlets are leading the daily news cycle. |
| Market analysts | Track which companies and topics are dominating tech media attention. |
| Content curators | Build automated daily newsletters or link roundups from the top tech stories. |
| Competitive intelligence teams | Identify which competitor announcements are breaking through to the top of the news agenda. |
What it does
This Actor collects the current ranked stories from the Techmeme homepage and returns each one as a flat row with its headline, URL, author, publication, excerpt, and related links.
- 📰 Ranked story list: The exact order and prominence of stories as they appear on the Techmeme homepage.
- ✍️ Editorial context: The human-written excerpt that summarizes why a story matters, plus the author and publication name.
- 🔗 Related coverage cluster: All the linked articles and commentary that Techmeme groups under each main story.
- ⚙️ Simple volume control: Set a maximum number of stories to fetch, from a quick preview up to a full scrape.
Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.
What you can do with Techmeme data
📈 Track daily tech media narratives.
A communications lead scrapes Techmeme each morning to see which stories and outlets are setting the day's agenda, then adjusts their pitching strategy.
📰 Build an automated tech roundup.
A newsletter writer runs the Actor on a schedule, pulls the top headlines and excerpts, and feeds them into a daily email template.
🔍 Monitor competitor media presence.
A competitive analyst scrapes the homepage daily and filters for mentions of rival companies to measure share of voice in elite tech media.
📊 Feed a media intelligence dashboard.
A data engineer pipes the ranked story list into a BI tool to visualize trending topics, authors, and publications over time.
Why choose this scraper
| What you get | |
|---|---|
| No API key or registration | Reads the public Techmeme homepage, so you never deal with authentication or rate-limit headaches. |
| Fixed, predictable schema | Every story arrives with the same fields, making it easy to pipe into a database, spreadsheet, or dashboard. |
| Editorial signal included | You get the human-curated excerpt and the related-links cluster, not a bare headline list. |
How it compares
This Actor and the Techmeme News Scraper both extract stories from the Techmeme homepage. The table below compares the capabilities each listing describes.
| Feature | ParseForge | Techmeme News Scraper |
|---|---|---|
| Ranked story list from homepage | Yes | Yes |
| Editorial excerpt text | Yes | Yes |
| Author and publication name | Yes | Yes |
| Related coverage cluster links | Yes | Yes |
| Configurable max items per run | Yes, up to 1,000,000 | Not listed |
| Free preview tier | Yes, up to 10 items | Not listed |
Configure the run
Drive the Actor by setting a maximum number of stories to return, from a small preview up to the full homepage. 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
- Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
- Open the Techmeme Scraper.
- Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
- 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 Techmeme 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/techmeme-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 the Techmeme homepage is reachable from your browser. If the site layout has changed, the Actor may need an update. Try reducing maxItems to a small number first.
The Actor returns fewer stories than I set in maxItems.
The Actor can only return the stories that are present on the homepage at the time of the run. If the page shows 30 stories, setting maxItems to 100 will still return only those 30.
Some fields are empty in my results.
Not every Techmeme story has an author, publication, or excerpt. Empty fields mean that information was not present on the page for that particular story.
The Actor run fails with a timeout.
The Techmeme page may have been slow to respond. Increase the run timeout in the Actor's advanced settings and try again.
I hit the free-user limit of 10 items. How do I get more?
Upgrade to a paid Apify plan. Once on a paid plan, you can set maxItems to any value up to 1,000,000.
FAQ
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Does this scrape the entire Techmeme site or the homepage? | It scrapes the main Techmeme homepage, which lists the current top stories. It does not crawl historical archives or sub-pages. |
| Do I need a Techmeme account or API key? | No. The Actor reads the public homepage, so no login, account, or API key is required. |
| What data fields does each story row contain? | Each row includes the headline, story URL, author name, publication name, the editorial excerpt, and a list of related coverage links. |
| How often is the Techmeme homepage updated? | Techmeme updates continuously throughout the day. Run the Actor on a schedule to capture the latest story ranking each time. |
| Can I filter stories by topic or keyword? | The Actor returns the ranked list as it appears. You can filter the results after the run in your dataset using any tool that reads CSV or JSON. |
| Is there a limit to how many stories I can scrape? | Free users can fetch up to 10 stories as a preview. Paid Apify users can set a higher maximum, up to 1,000,000, though the homepage typically shows fewer. |
| Does this Actor handle Techmeme's 'river' view or only the main page? | It targets the main curated homepage. The river view is a different page and is not included in the current version. |
| What output formats are supported? | You can export your results to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify dataset tab. |
| Can I run this on a schedule? | Yes. You can set up a recurring schedule in Apify, such as every hour or every morning, to capture the homepage at regular intervals. |
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 Techmeme. 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.
Input
| Field | Type | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| maxItems | integer | Free users: Limited to 10 items (preview). Paid users: Optional, max 1,000,000 | 10 |
Pricing
from $19.00 per 1,000 results
| Charged for | What it is | Price each |
|---|---|---|
| result | Single result in the default dataset. | $0.019 to $0.021 |
Tiered: the lower figure is the price on a higher Apify plan. Billing and the free credit live on Apify.
API
One POST returns the dataset directly. Same shape for every scraper in the library, so swapping the slug is the only change.
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/parseforge~techmeme-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"helloWorld": 123
}' Examples
Input that runs as-is.
{
"helloWorld": 123
} Reviews
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Issues
We build and maintain this scraper, so a problem with it comes to us. Report it on the Apify listing and the thread stays attached to the scraper where the next person can find it: open an issue.
Broken and urgent, or you would rather not post in public? Write to parseforge@protonmail.com and it reaches the people who wrote it.