A PRAW alternative for reading Reddit at volume

A library and a service are different things

The same three tasks, both ways

Newest posts in a subreddit

# PRAW
reddit = praw.Reddit(client_id=ID, client_secret=SECRET, user_agent=UA)
posts = list(reddit.subreddit("python").new(limit=100))

# Apixstar
posts = requests.get(f"{BASE}/reddit/v1/r/python/new",
                     params={"limit": 100}, headers=AUTH).json()["data"]["posts"]

A thread with its comments

# PRAW
submission = reddit.submission(id="1abc2de")
submission.comments.replace_more(limit=None)   # one extra call per "load more"
comments = submission.comments.list()

# Apixstar
thread = requests.get(f"{BASE}/reddit/v1/posts/1abc2de",
                      params={"commentLimit": 200}, headers=AUTH).json()["data"]

Search inside a subreddit

# PRAW
hits = reddit.subreddit("python").search("asyncio", sort="new", time_filter="week")

# Apixstar
hits = requests.get(f"{BASE}/reddit/v1/r/python/search",
                    params={"q": "asyncio", "sort": "new", "timeRange": "week"},
                    headers=AUTH).json()["data"]

In these snippets BASE is https://api.apixstar.com and AUTH is {"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"}. PRAW returns lazy Python objects. Apixstar returns plain JSON.

Keep PRAW for these

Anything that acts as a user: submitting, replying, voting, moderating, reading an inbox or a private feed. Also small non-commercial scripts that fit comfortably inside the free limits. Use Apixstar for the read-heavy part where you are waiting on the rate limiter, or where you would rather not manage Reddit credentials.

PRAW questions