Reddit Comment Scraper

Product Introduction

1. Overview: The Reddit Comment Scraper is a specialized Chrome extension for structured data extraction from Reddit threads using DOM parsing and API emulation techniques.
2. Value: Enables one-click conversion of unstructured Reddit discussions into analyzable datasets while preserving metadata hierarchies and conversation structures.

Main Features

1. CSV/JSON Export Engine: Automatically formats extracted data into spreadsheet-ready CSV or machine-readable JSON with UTF-8 encoding and schema preservation.
2. Metadata Capture: Extracts 20+ data points including author karma scores, comment timestamps (ISO 8601 format), upvote ratios, award types, and nested reply hierarchies.
3. Local Processing Architecture: Executes entirely client-side using Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine with zero data transmission to external servers.

Problems Solved

1. Challenge: Manual Reddit data collection is time-prohibitive and fails to capture nested comment structures essential for conversation analysis.
2. Audience: Academic researchers needing datasets for NLP training, marketing teams conducting sentiment analysis, and data scientists building social listening models.
3. Scenario: Extracting 10,000+ comments from r/technology threads to analyze cryptocurrency sentiment fluctuations during market events.

Unique Advantages

1. Vs Competitors: Processes data locally unlike cloud-based alternatives (e.g., Apify), eliminating API costs while maintaining GDPR-compliant privacy.
2. Innovation: Reverse-engineered Reddit's GraphQL endpoints to bypass anti-scraping measures while maintaining 99.2% data capture accuracy.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Does this work with private Reddit accounts? No, the extension only accesses publicly visible content compliant with Reddit's robots.txt policies.
2. What's the maximum comments per scrape? Tested to handle 15,000+ comments per thread through Chrome's optimized memory allocation.
3. Can I scrape historical Reddit data? Yes, supports time-range filtering through Reddit's search operators (e.g., timestamp:1625097600..1627776000).