Apify Social Media Scrapers: Which One to Use

Pick by the job

Start from the rows you want at the end, not from the platform. Each name links to the tool's page on this site.

What each one returns, and where it stops

• TikTok: a row per video with plays, likes, comments, shares, saves, the caption, the sound and the author, and a row per profile with followers, lifetime likes and bio. A profile gives you about a dozen rows, the account plus its ten or eleven newest videos, because that is all TikTok shows a signed-out visitor. Hashtags and keyword searches go much deeper, so use those for volume.
• Tweets: a row per tweet with the text, likes, retweets, replies, views, media, hashtags and author. Handles and tweet links need nothing from you. Search does: X stopped answering searches for signed-out visitors, so search terms only work with cookies from your own X session.
• X profiles: a row per handle with followers, following, post count, name, bio and both verification flags. You bring the handles. It does not search for accounts, and it returns the profile, not the tweets on it.
• Instagram: a profile row plus the posts and reels on its public grid, each with caption, likes, comments, views on reels, media links and hashtags. A post or reel link gives you that one item. Paging stops at 60 pages, so a very large account will not come back complete in one run.
• YouTube comments: a row per comment with the text, author handle and channel ID, like and reply counts, verified badge and avatar. Big like counts arrive the way YouTube prints them, "315K" rather than an exact number, and reply threads are not opened.
• Google Maps: a row per place with the name, category, address, rating, coordinates and Google's own IDs. Phone and website come back only when Google prints them on the results card, which is rare, so don't plan a call list around them.
• Trustpilot: a row per review with the rating, title, full text, author and country, the verified flag, both dates, the company's reply and its TrustScore. Expect about 200 reviews per company per run, the ten pages Trustpilot lists to visitors without an account.
• Yelp: a row per business from Yelp's official API, run with your own free key. Yelp caps reviews at three short excerpts per business, so treat it as a listings tool, not a review archive.

When none of the eight fits

• Searching X without your own account: the Twitter (X) Search Scraper takes keywords and X's advanced operators and needs no X login from you.
• Comments under a TikTok video: the TikTok Scraper doesn't return them. The TikTok Comments Scraper does, top-level comments only.
• Posts under an Instagram hashtag: the Instagram Scraper works from usernames and links, so for tags use the Instagram Hashtag Scraper.
• A call list with phone numbers: start with Yelp, whose rows carry the phone and address Yelp holds for each business. Google Maps search rows rarely have a phone.

Our other social scrapers, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit and Threads among them, are listed on the social media scrapers page.

How to run any of them

• 1. Open the tool on Apify and click Try for free. A free Apify account is all most of them need.
• 2. Fill in the input. Usually a search, some usernames or hashtags, or a list of links. Set a results limit so you control the cost.
• 3. Click Start. The run happens on Apify's servers, so nothing installs on your machine and your own IP address is never used.
• 4. Export. When the run finishes, open the Dataset tab and download JSON, CSV or Excel.
• 5. Schedule it if the job repeats. Apify's scheduler can re-run the same input every day or week, say for a competitor's new posts or a fresh batch of reviews.

A realistic input for the Google Maps Scraper:

• searchQueries: ["coffee shops in Austin, TX"]
• maxItems: 120

Rows come back with name, category, address, rating, reviewCount, lat, lng and placeId. The phone and website fields are there too, though usually empty for the reason above. The other tools work the same way: a short input in, flat rows out.

What you pay

All eight charge per result, with no subscription, so results that don't come back aren't charged. What counts as a result depends on the tool: a tweet, a profile, a comment, a review, a Yelp business with its review excerpts included, or a row on TikTok, Instagram and Google Maps.

Prices change, so this guide doesn't quote them. Each tool's page shows the current price, and a first run on a small limit tells you what your volume will cost.

FAQ

Do I need an account or an API key? A free Apify account, and for most of these nothing else. Two exceptions: the Yelp Scraper needs your own free Yelp Fusion API key, and the Tweet Scraper's search mode needs cookies from your own X session. Handles and tweet links work without them.

Why did a run return fewer rows than my limit? The limit is a ceiling, not a promise. A TikTok profile stops at about a dozen rows, Trustpilot lists about 200 reviews per company, and a long Maps search often runs out of new places before 500. You are charged per row that arrives, not per row you asked for.

Are these legal to use? They collect publicly visible data. You are responsible for using it in line with each platform's terms, your local laws and privacy rules such as GDPR. Stick to public data, and don't use it to harass or spam anyone.

Where to start

Pick the tool that matches the job and run a small batch first. For local businesses, start with the Google Maps Scraper, or Yelp if you have a key. For social content, the TikTok and Instagram scrapers; for X, the Tweet Scraper. To read what customers and viewers say, Trustpilot and YouTube comments.

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