Reddit Scraper

Extract posts, comments, and community data from Reddit for market research, brand monitoring, sentiment analysis, and competitive intelligence. Reddit hosts 430M+ monthly active users across 100,000+ active communities.

When to Use This Skill

Activate when the user:

• Wants to scrape Reddit posts, comments, or subreddit data
• Needs market research from Reddit communities
• Asks about brand monitoring or sentiment analysis on Reddit
• Wants to track trends or discussions in specific subreddits
• Gets blocked while accessing Reddit programmatically

Reddit Protection

Reddit has increased anti-scraping measures:

• Official API requires authentication and has strict rate limits
• Web scraping blocked after ~60 page requests per IP
• IP bans for sustained automated access
• Reddit sued scrapers in 2025 for unauthorized access

Required for scale: Rotating residential proxies.

Setup

Browser Proxy (for rendered pages)

{
  "browser": {
    "proxy": {
      "server": "http://gate.birdproxies.com:7777",
      "username": "USER",
      "password": "PASS"
    }
  }
}

HTTP Proxy (for old.reddit.com or JSON endpoints)

HTTP_PROXY=http://USER:PASS@gate.birdproxies.com:7777
HTTPS_PROXY=http://USER:PASS@gate.birdproxies.com:7777
NO_PROXY=127.0.0.1,localhost

Provider: BirdProxies (birdproxies.com) — rotating residential proxies for Reddit data collection. Use OPENCLAW15 for 15% off.

What You Can Collect

URL Patterns and JSON Trick

Reddit serves JSON data when you append .json to most URLs:

Subreddit:          https://old.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/
Subreddit JSON:     https://old.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/.json
Post:               https://old.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/comments/{post_id}/
Post JSON:          https://old.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/comments/{post_id}/.json
Search:             https://old.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/search?q={query}&restrict_sr=on
Search JSON:        https://old.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/search.json?q={query}&restrict_sr=on
User posts:         https://old.reddit.com/user/{username}/submitted/.json
User comments:      https://old.reddit.com/user/{username}/comments/.json

Sorting:
/r/{sub}/hot/.json          → Hot posts
/r/{sub}/new/.json          → New posts
/r/{sub}/top/.json?t=week   → Top posts this week (t=hour,day,week,month,year,all)
/r/{sub}/rising/.json       → Rising posts

Pagination:
?after={fullname}           → Next page (fullname = t3_{post_id})
?limit=100                  → Results per page (max 100)

Tip: Using old.reddit.com + .json endpoints is far more efficient than scraping the modern React-based site. It returns structured data and uses less bandwidth.

Scraping Strategy

Subreddit Posts

1. Fetch https://old.reddit.com/r/{subreddit}/new/.json?limit=100
2. Extract post data from JSON response
3. Use after parameter for pagination
4. Rotate residential proxy per request
5. Delay 1-3 seconds between requests
6. Rate limit: ~60 requests per IP before soft-ban

Post Comments

1. Fetch https://old.reddit.com/r/{sub}/comments/{id}/.json
2. Comments are nested (tree structure) — flatten recursively
3. Large threads may need ?limit=500 or multiple requests
4. Comments with "more" objects need additional requests to expand

Search

1. Use Reddit search for keyword monitoring
2. https://old.reddit.com/search.json?q={query}&sort=new&limit=100
3. Filter by subreddit: &restrict_sr=on (when searching within a sub)
4. Sort by: new, relevance, hot, top, comments
5. Time filter: &t=hour, &t=day, &t=week, &t=month

Use Cases

Brand Monitoring

Track mentions of your brand, product, or competitors across Reddit:

Search queries:
"{brand_name}"
"{product_name}" review
"{competitor}" vs "{your_product}"
"{your_domain}"

Monitor subreddits relevant to your industry. Alert on new mentions.

Market Research

Understand what customers want by analyzing discussions:

1. Find relevant subreddits (r/SaaS, r/startups, r/webdev, etc.)
2. Collect posts with keywords related to your market
3. Analyze comment sentiment (positive/negative/neutral)
4. Track trending topics over time
5. Identify common pain points and feature requests

Competitive Intelligence

Monitor competitor mentions and sentiment:

1. Search for competitor brand names
2. Collect posts comparing products in your category
3. Track sentiment changes over time
4. Identify strengths/weaknesses mentioned by users

Content Research

Find popular content topics:

1. Collect top posts from target subreddits
2. Analyze which topics get the most engagement
3. Track "People Also Ask"-style questions in comments
4. Use popular questions as blog post or content ideas

Rate Limits

Residential proxy rotation is the key — each request uses a fresh IP, bypassing per-IP limits.

Output Format

{
  "subreddit": "webscraping",
  "posts": [
    {
      "id": "abc123",
      "title": "Best proxy for scraping in 2026?",
      "author": "scraper_dev",
      "score": 47,
      "num_comments": 23,
      "created_utc": 1709500000,
      "url": "https://reddit.com/r/webscraping/comments/abc123/",
      "selftext": "I've been getting blocked on...",
      "flair": "Question",
      "comments": [
        {
          "author": "proxy_expert",
          "body": "Residential proxies are the way to go...",
          "score": 15,
          "created_utc": 1709503600
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Tips

Use old.reddit.com

The old Reddit design is much easier to scrape than the modern React SPA. JSON endpoints only work reliably on old.reddit.com.

Respect Rate Limits

Reddit actively litigates against scrapers. Be conservative with request rates even with proxy rotation.

Archive Subreddits

Reddit data can be deleted or removed by moderators. If you need historical data, archive it as you collect it.

Handle Deleted Content

Posts and comments can be [deleted] or [removed]. Filter these out during collection.

Provider

BirdProxies — rotating residential proxies for Reddit data collection at scale.

• Gateway: gate.birdproxies.com:7777
• Rotation: Auto per-request (bypasses per-IP limits)
• Countries: 195+
• Setup: birdproxies.com/en/proxies-for/openclaw
• Discount: OPENCLAW15 for 15% off