# YouTube Comments Scraper — Video Comment API (`nexgendata/youtube-comments-scraper`) Actor

Scrape YouTube video comments for social monitoring. Clean JSON for PR, media-monitoring teams and AI agents.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/nexgendata/youtube-comments-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [NexGenData](https://apify.com/nexgendata) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, AI
- **Stats:** 9 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.00 / 1,000 comments

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## YouTube Comments Scraper — Video Comment API

Extract comments from any YouTube video as clean JSON — for social monitoring, PR/comms and media-monitoring teams, and AI agents. Give it one or more video URLs and get one record per comment (replies included).

### 📊 What you get

One JSON record per comment:

- `comment_id` — comment id
- `text` — comment text
- `author` — author display name
- `channel` — author channel id
- `votes` — like count as shown by YouTube
- `heart` — hearted by the creator (boolean)
- `is_reply` — reply vs. top-level comment (boolean)
- `time_text` / `time_parsed` — relative time + parsed timestamp
- `video_id`, `video_url` — source video

### ⚙️ Input

- `videoUrls` — YouTube video URLs (or 11-character video IDs)
- `maxComments` — maximum comments per video
- `includeReplies` — include threaded replies (default: true)
- `sortBy` — `top` or `recent`

### 💵 Pricing

Pay-per-event: **$0.003 per comment** plus a small per-run start fee. You pay only for the comments actually returned.

### 🔎 Free preview limit

Free-plan runs return a **200-comment preview per run** so you can evaluate the output. **Paid-plan runs are uncapped** and extract in full (billed per comment). To extract beyond the preview, upgrade to any paid Apify plan.

### ⏰ Run it on a schedule

Point it at the videos you care about and schedule a recurring run to keep pulling fresh comments as they arrive.

### 🤖 Use with AI agents

Clean, structured JSON plugs directly into agents and pipelines via the Apify API and MCP.

# Actor input Schema

## `videoUrls` (type: `array`):

YouTube video URLs (or IDs) to scrape comments from.

## `maxComments` (type: `integer`):

Maximum comments to return per video. Defaults to 25 as an evaluation-sized sample; raise it for full runs (each comment is billed).

## `includeReplies` (type: `boolean`):

Include reply comments (threaded).

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Comment sort order.

## `__forceFreePreview` (type: `boolean`):

Internal test flag — forces the free-tier 200-comment preview regardless of plan. Not for normal use.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxComments": 25,
  "includeReplies": true,
  "sortBy": "top",
  "__forceFreePreview": false
}
```

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "maxComments": 25,
    "sortBy": "top"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("nexgendata/youtube-comments-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "maxComments": 25,
    "sortBy": "top",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("nexgendata/youtube-comments-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "maxComments": 25,
  "sortBy": "top"
}' |
apify call nexgendata/youtube-comments-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,nexgendata/youtube-comments-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/iDb4n0VQht9Tqtj38/builds/hQmiu03n0IMPbTeOe/openapi.json