Reddit API in Python

Last reviewed October 8, 2026

Short answer: Install requests, send a GET with your API key in the Authorization header, and read data from the JSON response. The script below covers listings, pagination, threads, search and retries in about 40 lines.

Set up

pip install requests
export APIXSTAR_API_KEY="xstar_..."

Create the key in the console after signing in with Google. Keep it in an environment variable, not in your source.

A small client

import os, time, requests

BASE = "https://api.apixstar.com/reddit/v1"
AUTH = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['APIXSTAR_API_KEY']}"}

def get(path, **params):
    for attempt in range(5):
        r = requests.get(BASE + path, params=params, headers=AUTH, timeout=30)
        if r.status_code == 429:                      # our limit or Reddit's
            time.sleep(float(r.headers.get("Retry-After", 2 ** attempt)))
            continue
        if r.status_code >= 500:                      # upstream trouble, not charged
            time.sleep(2 ** attempt)
            continue
        body = r.json()
        if not body["ok"]:
            raise RuntimeError(body["error"]["code"])
        return body
    raise RuntimeError("gave up after 5 attempts")

Fetch posts from a subreddit

page = get("/r/python/new", limit=100)
for post in page["data"]["posts"]:
    print(post["score"], post["title"])
print("charged:", page["meta"]["billing"]["charged"],
      "balance:", page["meta"]["billing"]["balanceRemaining"])

Paginate past 100

def all_posts(sub, pages=5):
    cursor = None
    for _ in range(pages):
        page = get(f"/r/{sub}/new", limit=100, **({"cursor": cursor} if cursor else {}))
        yield from page["data"]["posts"]
        cursor = next_cursor(page)        # the token returned with the page
        if not cursor:
            return

Five pages is 500 posts, which costs $0.03. You pay per 10 posts returned.

Read a thread with comments

thread = get("/posts/1abc2de", commentLimit=200)["data"]

Search

hits = get("/r/python/search", q="asyncio", sort="new", timeRange="week")["data"]
everywhere = get("/search", q='"vector database"', sort="top", timeRange="month")["data"]

Go faster with threads

from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor

subs = ["python", "rust", "golang", "typescript"]
with ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=4) as pool:
    results = list(pool.map(lambda s: get(f"/r/{s}/top", limit=100), subs))

Stay under your account's requests-per-minute limit. A request rejected by the limit returns 429 and is not charged.

Using PRAW instead

If you need to post, reply or moderate, use PRAW with the official API. The same three reads written both ways are on the PRAW comparison page. Every parameter used above is in the API reference.

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