📷 Instagram Reel Comment Scraper — Extract Comments from Public Instagram Reels

Instagram Reel Comment Scraper extracts top-level comments from any public Instagram Reel — author, text, timestamp, likes. No login, no cookies, no Instagram account required.

Perfect for social media analysts, brand monitoring teams, and researchers who need Instagram Reel comment data without manually scrolling and copy-pasting.

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Why scrape Instagram Reel comments?

Instagram Reel comments are a direct read on audience sentiment, engagement quality, and what people actually say about a video — signal that likes and view counts don't capture. Common use cases:

• Sentiment analysis: pull comments on a product launch or campaign reel and run them through a sentiment model.
• Competitor monitoring: see what audiences are saying on a competitor's reels.
• Influencer vetting: check whether an influencer's comment section looks like real engagement.
• Research datasets: build a labeled dataset of public comment text for NLP work.
• Community management: export comments for review outside the Instagram app.

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What data can Instagram Reel Comment Scraper extract?

💬 Comment content

• text — the comment body
• created_at — Unix timestamp the comment was posted
• like_count — likes on the comment

👤 Author

• user.username, user.id, user.is_verified, user.profile_pic_url

🆔 Identifiers

• id / pk — the comment's unique Instagram ID
• child_comment_count — number of replies (replies themselves aren't fetched yet — see Limitations)

🔗 Source metadata

• source_url — the input URL this comment came from

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⚙️ How to use Instagram Reel Comment Scraper

urls (Array, required)

One or more public Instagram Reel URLs. Instagram links to the same reel using several different URL shapes — all of them work here.

Input value	What it extracts
https://www.instagram.com/reels/<shortcode>/ or /reel/<shortcode>/	Comments on that reel
https://www.instagram.com/p/<shortcode>/	Also works — Instagram often serves reels under /p/ links too
https://www.instagram.com/<username>/reel/<shortcode>/	Same, with a username prefix

{
    "urls": [
        { "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reels/DTvy2W3ErPl/" }
    ]
}

maxCommentsPerUrl (Integer)

• Default: 100
• Maximum comments to collect per URL. Set to 0 to collect every available comment. The actor stops fetching as soon as this limit is reached — it never over-fetches then discards.

{
    "urls": [{ "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reels/DTvy2W3ErPl/" }],
    "maxCommentsPerUrl": 0
}

🔐 Authentication

None required. Works on public reels without an Instagram login.

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💰 Pricing

This actor is free to run — every result is priced at $0. You only pay Apify's standard platform compute cost for the run itself.

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📊 Sample Output

{
    "id": "18416918653194028",
    "pk": "18416918653194028",
    "text": "كفو عليك يا بطل 😍",
    "created_at": 1783110883,
    "like_count": 0,
    "child_comment_count": null,
    "parent_comment_id": null,
    "user": {
        "id": "1448110168",
        "username": "_b97j",
        "is_verified": false,
        "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent.cdninstagram.com/..."
    },
    "source_url": "https://www.instagram.com/osama.azm5/reel/DaQSQ5hR7lv/",
    "_source": "instagram_comment_scraper"
}

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need an Instagram account to use this actor? No — only public reels are supported, and no login is required.

Can I scrape private reels? No — only publicly visible reels are supported.

Can I scrape Instagram posts, not just reels? This actor is built and tested for Reels — /reel/, /reels/, and /p/ links all work, since Instagram uses all three interchangeably for reels. Comment extraction isn't restricted by content type, so a link to a non-reel post will often work too, but Reels are the only officially supported and tested case.

Can I scrape multiple reels in one run? Yes — add multiple entries to urls. Each is processed independently; if one fails (deleted, private, invalid URL) the others still run.

Does this fetch comment replies? Not yet — only top-level comments are extracted in this version.

What happens if a URL is invalid or the reel is gone? That URL is skipped with a logged error; the run continues with the remaining URLs.

How many comments can I extract for free? As many as you configure via maxCommentsPerUrl — every result is $0. Apify's own compute cost for the run still applies.

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⚠️ Limitations

• Only Reels are supported. Posts, photos, and other Instagram content types are out of scope.
• Replies are not extracted. Only top-level comments are returned; child_comment_count tells you how many replies exist, but they aren't fetched in this version.
• Total comment counts are best-effort — Instagram reports a total for most reels, but it isn't guaranteed present on every run.
• Instagram changes over time. If a run unexpectedly starts returning zero comments, it likely means Instagram changed something on their end — please report it.

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⚖️ Legal & Ethical Use

This actor extracts publicly visible data from Instagram — the same comments any visitor can see without logging in.

Please use this tool responsibly:

• Only extract data from reels you are authorized to analyze.
• Comply with Instagram's Terms of Use and applicable data protection regulations (GDPR, CCPA, etc.).
• Do not use extracted data for spam, harassment, or unsolicited outreach.

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🌐 Proxy Support

User tier	Proxy used
💎 Paying (dedicated proxy configured)	Dedicated residential proxy, with automatic fallback to Apify Proxy
🆓 Free	Apify Proxy (residential)

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🚫 Error Handling

Situation	What you see	What to do
URL isn't a valid instagram.com media URL	Rejected before the run starts, logged as a warning	Use a /reel/, /reels/, or /p/ URL
Reel is deleted, private, or geo-blocked	URL X/Y could not be loaded — skipping	Confirm the reel is public and still exists
Instagram changed something on their end	comments could not be retrieved	Report the issue so the actor can be updated

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🌟 Related Actors

• Facebook Comment Scraper — the same approach applied to Facebook reels, posts, photos, and videos.