# F-Droid App Catalog Scraper (`datamule/f-droid-scraper`) Actor

Scrape structured metadata for open-source Android apps from F-Droid — package, name, license, categories, author, source/website/issue links, version, anti-features, icon and APK URL. Query by keyword, package ID, or category. Pay per app.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/datamule/f-droid-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Datamule](https://apify.com/datamule) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.35 / 1,000 app scrapeds

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#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

## F-Droid App Catalog Scraper

Get clean, structured metadata for open-source Android apps from **[F-Droid](https://f-droid.org)**, the free-and-open-source Android app catalog. Search by keyword, pull exact packages by ID, or filter by category — and receive one tidy JSON record per app, ready for analysis, dashboards, or a dataset.

F-Droid publishes an official, fully public repository index, but it ships as one large raw JSON blob with localized string maps, epoch-millisecond timestamps, and version data spread across nested objects. This Actor does the parsing for you: it downloads the index once, resolves the best English strings, picks the suggested stable version, builds absolute icon and APK URLs, and hands back flat, predictable records.

### What you get per app

| Field | Description |
| --- | --- |
| `packageName` | Android application ID (e.g. `org.fdroid.fdroid`) |
| `name` | App display name |
| `summary` | One-line summary |
| `description` | Full description |
| `license` | SPDX license (e.g. `GPL-3.0-or-later`) |
| `categories` | F-Droid categories the app belongs to |
| `authorName` | Author / maintainer name |
| `webSite` | Project website |
| `sourceCode` | Source-code repository |
| `issueTracker` | Issue tracker URL |
| `changelog` | Changelog URL |
| `translation` | Translation platform URL |
| `donate` | Donation links |
| `added` | Date first added to F-Droid (`YYYY-MM-DD`) |
| `lastUpdated` | Date last updated (`YYYY-MM-DD`) |
| `suggestedVersionName` | Suggested stable version name |
| `suggestedVersionCode` | Suggested stable version code |
| `antiFeatures` | Anti-feature flags (e.g. `NonFreeNet`, `Tracking`, `Ads`) |
| `iconUrl` | Absolute icon URL |
| `latestApkUrl` | Absolute APK download URL for the suggested version |
| `url` | F-Droid app page |

Any field that is absent for a given app is returned as `null`, so the output shape is stable.

### Input

Provide **any combination** of these — they compose:

| Field | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `query` | string | Keyword matched against name, summary, description and package ID (case-insensitive). |
| `packageIds` | array | Exact application IDs to fetch. Always returned, regardless of `query`/`categories`. |
| `categories` | array | Restrict to F-Droid categories (e.g. `Internet`, `Security`, `Games`, `Multimedia`, `System`). |
| `maxItems` | integer | Cap on the number of records returned. Defaults to 100. |

#### Examples

Search for messaging apps:

```json
{ "query": "messaging", "maxItems": 25 }
```

Fetch specific packages exactly:

```json
{ "packageIds": ["org.fdroid.fdroid", "org.thoughtcrime.securesms"] }
```

Security apps only, narrowed by keyword:

```json
{ "query": "password", "categories": ["Security"], "maxItems": 50 }
```

### How it works

1. Downloads F-Droid's official `index-v2.json` once (public, no auth, no anti-bot).
2. Parses it in-memory and filters to your query, package IDs, and/or categories.
3. Resolves localized strings, converts timestamps to ISO dates, picks the suggested stable version, and builds absolute icon/APK URLs.
4. Pushes one clean record per matched app to the dataset.

Because the whole catalog is fetched in a single request and filtered locally, runs are fast and put minimal load on F-Droid's servers.

### Pricing

This Actor uses **pay-per-event**: you are charged per app record returned. No subscription, no idle costs — you pay only for the data you get.

### Notes

- Data comes straight from F-Droid's public repository index; the Actor never fabricates fields.
- All software indexed by F-Droid is free and open source; this Actor only reads publicly published catalog metadata.

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Keyword to match against app name, summary, description and package ID (case-insensitive). e.g. "messaging", "password", "podcast". Leave empty to pull by package ID or category instead.

## `packageIds` (type: `array`):

Exact Android application IDs to fetch, e.g. org.fdroid.fdroid or org.thoughtcrime.securesms. These are always returned (exact lookups), independent of the query and categories.

## `categories` (type: `array`):

Filter to F-Droid categories, e.g. "Internet", "Security", "Games", "Multimedia", "System". An app matches if it belongs to any of the given categories. Combine with a query to narrow further.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of app records to return. Protects against pulling the whole catalog by accident.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "messaging",
  "packageIds": [],
  "categories": [],
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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 = {
    "query": "messaging",
    "packageIds": [],
    "categories": [],
    "maxItems": 100
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("datamule/f-droid-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 = {
    "query": "messaging",
    "packageIds": [],
    "categories": [],
    "maxItems": 100,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("datamule/f-droid-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

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

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

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "query": "messaging",
  "packageIds": [],
  "categories": [],
  "maxItems": 100
}' |
apify call datamule/f-droid-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=datamule/f-droid-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/DQyRL1cLNpGzP3rUF/builds/ya1nCiZNCfg08wUvp/openapi.json