# Capterra Review Scraper (`moving_beacon-owner1/capterra-review-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes Capterra product ratings and reviews using live pages or Wayback snapshots when blocked. Extracts product details, review ratings, titles, pros, cons, reviewer data, dates, sentiment, and source provenance, with review or product output modes.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/moving\_beacon-owner1/capterra-review-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Jamshaid Arif](https://apify.com/moving_beacon-owner1) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, E-commerce, Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 60.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $9.99 / 1,000 results

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/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

## Capterra Review Scraper

Apify actor that scrapes product ratings and reviews from
[capterra.com](https://www.capterra.com) profiles via their embedded
schema.org JSON-LD.

### Read this first: Capterra blocks scrapers hard

Capterra sits behind aggressive Cloudflare protection. **The reference
data this actor was built against never came from the live site** — the
original scraper was blocked and silently served an archive.org
snapshot instead.

So this actor makes that explicit rather than hiding it. Two-stage
fetch:

1. **Live** — curl\_cffi with real browser TLS impersonation, rotating
   chrome/safari/edge/firefox profiles on blocks. Far stronger than a
   plain client, but **not verified against live Capterra**.
2. **Archive** — if live is blocked and `waybackFallback` is on
   (default), the most recent HTTP-200 archive.org snapshot (CDX API,
   fetched with the `id_` modifier so no Wayback toolbar is injected).

**Every row records its provenance:**

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| `source` | `"live"` or `"wayback_snapshot"` |
| `snapshot_date` | e.g. `2026-07-15` (archive rows only) |
| `stale_days` | how old the snapshot is (archive rows only) |

The run log warns loudly on every archive fallback, and `SUMMARY`
carries a `sources` tally so you can see at a glance how much of a run
was live. Set `waybackFallback: false` if you want the run to **fail**
rather than serve stale data.

**For live data, use Apify RESIDENTIAL proxy** — it's the default in
the input schema for a reason.

### Input

```json
{
  "products": ["186596/Notion", "https://www.capterra.com/p/135003/Slack/"],
  "outputMode": "reviews",
  "waybackFallback": true,
  "includeSentiment": true,
  "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true, "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"] }
}
```

`id/Name` shorthand expands to the full product URL.

### Output

- **`reviews` mode** (default) — one row per review (`type: "review"`)
  plus a product-summary row (`type: "product"`). Filter by `type`.
- **`product` mode** — one row per product with reviews nested.

**Product fields:** name, `product_id`, description, aggregate `rating`,
`review_count`, `best_rating`, `reviews_scraped`,
`avg_review_sentiment`, plus provenance.

**Review fields:** rating, title, body, **pros**, **cons** (Capterra
publishes these separately as `positiveNotes`/`negativeNotes`),
reviewer, date, and a lexicon `sentiment` in \[-1, 1] (toggleable).

# Actor input Schema

## `products` (type: `array`):

Full URLs (`https://www.capterra.com/p/186596/Notion/`) or shorthand `id/Name` (`186596/Notion`).

## `outputMode` (type: `string`):

Choose the output format. 'reviews' generates one row per review with a product summary. 'product' generates one row per product with reviews nested.

## `waybackFallback` (type: `boolean`):

Capterra's Cloudflare blocks most datacenter IPs. When enabled (default), a blocked page is served from its most recent archive.org snapshot instead, and the row is tagged `source: wayback_snapshot` with `snapshot_date` and `stale_days`. Turn OFF if you only want live data and would rather the run error out.

## `includeSentiment` (type: `boolean`):

Score each review in \[-1, 1] with a small lexicon (no ML deps) and add a per-product average.

## `requestDelaySecs` (type: `integer`):

Capterra is aggressively protected — keep at 2+.

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

STRONGLY RECOMMENDED for live data: enable Apify Proxy with the RESIDENTIAL group. Without it, expect archive fallback on most runs.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "products": [
    "186596/Notion"
  ],
  "outputMode": "reviews",
  "waybackFallback": true,
  "includeSentiment": true,
  "requestDelaySecs": 2,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyCountry": "US"
  }
}
```

# 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 = {
    "products": [
        "186596/Notion"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("moving_beacon-owner1/capterra-review-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 = { "products": ["186596/Notion"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("moving_beacon-owner1/capterra-review-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 '{
  "products": [
    "186596/Notion"
  ]
}' |
apify call moving_beacon-owner1/capterra-review-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=moving_beacon-owner1/capterra-review-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/gCkfr9rIne6zREaXa/builds/3pkQ0Fv0NWoOlAHQH/openapi.json