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Best Reddit API alternatives (2026): read posts and comments after the March 2027 shutdown

Prompt template

Read the 20 top threads of the month in r/subreddit, with every comment, and save them to a CSV with title, author, score, date and link.

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Overview

Reddit is closing its public Data API: no new access requests after October 31, 2026, and no public access at all in March 2027. Developers, researchers, social listening teams and people who build AI agents now need another way to read Reddit posts and comments. This page compares five Reddit API alternatives: Reduck, Xpoz, RedditAPI, Quarra's Reddit Scraper on Apify and Arctic Shift.

Why it's hard

Reddit's own timeline, from its September 30, 2026 post on r/redditdev:

Date What changes
October 31, 2026 Reddit stops accepting new requests for public API access
January 12, 2027 API access starts to close for apps and users that have not registered or answered Reddit's outreach
March 2027 Public access closes for every remaining app and user

Reddit asks apps to move to its Developer Platform, Devvit, whose apps run inside Reddit. That is a route for bots and mod tools, not for a pipeline or an agent that reads Reddit from outside. Tools that read Reddit without signing in also face Reddit's next step: on October 31, 2026, TweakTown reported that Reddit will soon force visitors to log in to browse.

Reddit API alternatives compared

As each vendor's own site describes it, read on November 4, 2026. "Not documented" means we did not find it on their site.

How it gets Reddit data Signed in as you Historical data AI agent or MCP Starting price
Reduck Scripts that read Reddit in your own Chrome Yes, your own Reddit account No archive: what Reddit shows today MCP server, CLI and REST API Free tier
Xpoz Its own index ("billions" of posts), no platform API key No "Full historical data access" MCP server 500 free credits, once; Pro $16 a month for 7,500 credits
RedditAPI Pay-per-call API for reads, votes, writes and DMs Not documented Not documented Not documented 1,000 free reads a month; $0.0015 per read
Reddit Scraper on Apify (Quarra) Scrapes public pages with no login, account or key No Partial: Reddit lists about 1,000 posts per sort Through Apify's MCP server $2.50 per 1,000 posts or comments on Apify's Free plan, plus $0.005 per run
Arctic Shift Monthly archive dumps, a limited API and a web search No Yes: dumps from June 2005 to September 2026 Not documented Free, with no uptime guarantee

How Reduck does it

Reduck gives your agent Reddit scripts that run in your own Chrome, through the Reduck extension, where you are signed in to Reddit:

  • search_reddit searches all of Reddit with Reddit's own sort and time window.
  • get_subreddit_threads lists a subreddit's threads (new, hot, top, rising) with each post's full text.
  • get_thread reads a thread, with every comment when you ask for all of them.
  • get_user_comments reads a user's recent comments, page by page.

Each script returns structured data (titles, authors, scores, dates, links, text), so the agent can save it to a CSV, a spreadsheet or a database. There is no Reddit app to register and no key, so the end of new API access does not stop it. The same scripts run from the Reduck CLI and REST API, for a scheduled job.

Reduck is weaker for bulk data and history: it reads at a person's pace, in your browser, and only what Reddit shows today. For the full story of the shutdown, see What Reddit's API and RSS shutdown means for AI agents.

How to start

  1. Create a free account at reduck.ai.
  2. Install the Reduck extension in Chrome and pair it.
  3. Connect Reduck to your agent: docs.reduck.ai.
  4. Ask: "Read the 20 top threads of the month in r/webscraping, with every comment, and save them to a CSV with title, author, score, date and link."

FAQ

It depends on what you need. For an AI agent or a script that reads Reddit as you, signed in, with no API app: Reduck. For large volumes of public posts through a paid API: RedditAPI or Apify. For historical research: Arctic Shift's dumps, which run from June 2005 to September 2026.
Yes, with limits. Arctic Shift is free, with no uptime guarantee. Reduck has a free tier. RedditAPI gives 1,000 free reads a month and Xpoz 500 free credits once.
In March 2027, for every remaining app and user. Reddit's September 30, 2026 post on r/redditdev gives the steps: no new public API access requests after October 31, 2026, and from January 12, 2027, access starts to close for apps and users that have not registered or answered Reddit's outreach.
Only for an app that already has API access, and only until that access closes. PRAW is a client for Reddit's Data API, so it stops with it: Reddit takes no new access requests after October 31, 2026 and ends the remaining public access in March 2027.
Reddit's terms apply to every route in this comparison, and no tool changes them. Reduck reads only what your own signed-in account can see, one call at a time when you or your agent asks, and it runs no bot of its own. Keep to a person's pace, follow each subreddit's rules, and check Reddit's terms before you use the data commercially.
Arctic Shift is the free option for history: monthly dumps from June 2005 to September 2026, a limited API that catches up with the dumps after about 36 hours, and a web search.
Yes, for most of them. Reduck and Xpoz have MCP servers, and Apify actors are reachable through Apify's MCP server. With Reduck, the agent reads Reddit in your own Chrome, where you are signed in to Reddit.

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