Cut off
Pushshift (public)
Public and self-serve access ended after Reddit's 2023 API changes. The open Pushshift endpoints researchers relied on for years are no longer available to the general public.
The maintained Pushshift alternative
Pushshift lost public access and the free community mirrors are unmaintained and rate-limited. Redditapis is the replacement that stays up: REST historical and live search of posts, comments, and users, billed per call.
Written by Emma, developer relations at Redditapis. We bill historical and live search at a flat $0.002 per read (source: our published pricing), with none of the rate-limit throttling the free mirrors hit under load.
What is the best Pushshift alternative in 2026?
The best Pushshift alternative in 2026 is a maintained REST Reddit data API like Redditapis. Pushshift was cut off from public and self-serve access, and the free mirrors that replaced it (PullPush, Arctic Shift, archive dumps) are unmaintained, rate-limited, or stale. Redditapis is actively run: it covers both historical and live search of posts, comments, and users over plain HTTPS, needs no Reddit developer-app approval, and bills a flat rate per call from $0.002 a read.
What happened
Pushshift went dark, and the mirrors are shaky.
For years Pushshift was how developers and researchers pulled historical Reddit data at scale. After Reddit's 2023 API changes, Pushshift lost its public, self-serve access and Reddit restricted public and free-tier access to its data API. The community filled the gap, but every free option that replaced Pushshift has a catch.
Rate-limited
PullPush.io
A community mirror that fills the gap, but it is volunteer-run, throttled, and frequently returns timeouts or gaps under load. No SLA, no support, no guarantee it stays up.
Dump-based
Arctic Shift
A community effort that rebuilds dumps and offers some search. Useful for archival work, but the live coverage lags and ingestion is best-effort, not a production data path.
Static
Academic dumps / torrents
Monthly archive dumps distributed as torrents. Fine for a one-time research corpus, but they are huge, stale by weeks, and give you nothing for live or recent data.
What you get instead.
One maintained REST API that does the Pushshift job and the live job, without the approval gate.
Historical search
Query past posts and comments by subreddit, author, keyword, and time window over a plain REST endpoint, the way Pushshift used to work. Reddit caps any single feed at roughly 1,000 items, so this reaches back through what Reddit still serves rather than a full archive.
Live search
Search current posts, comments, communities, and users as they happen. One API covers both past and live search.
No app approval
No Reddit developer-app review, no OAuth dance, no 2-to-4-week wait. Sign up, get a bearer token, make your first call in minutes.
Flat per-call pricing
Pay per request from $0.002 a read. No annual contract, no monthly minimum, costs that track exactly with your volume.
Coverage and rate limits, source by source.
| Source | Coverage window | Rate limit / access | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pushshift (public) | 2005 to May 2, 2023 (public access revoked) | None; Reddit cut off public API access on May 2, 2023 | N/A, no longer public |
| PullPush.io | 2005 to 2023 (inherited archive) plus ongoing collection | 15 req/min soft cap, 30 req/min hard cap, ≈1,000 req/hour ceiling | Free, volunteer-run |
| Arctic Shift | December 2005 to the current month, monthly releases | ≈120,000 requests/hour sustained ceiling | Free, torrent + API |
| Academic dumps / torrents | Monthly snapshots, static | Bulk download only, no live query | Free |
| Official Reddit Data API | Live only, no historical backfill | 100 RPM base, scales to 1,000 RPM by payment tier | $0.24 per 1K calls, by negotiated agreement (commercial) |
| RedditAPI | Historical and live search, one REST API | No platform-level rate caps | From $0.002 per call, no contract |
Reddit revoked Pushshift's public API access on May 2, 2023. PullPush and Arctic Shift figures per their own published rate-limit and coverage docs; official Reddit Data API pricing per Reddit's 2023 commercial API pricing announcement. Community-run figures can change without notice; validate current numbers before relying on them for production.
How it works
Swap a mirror call for one REST request.
If you were hitting a Pushshift-style endpoint, the migration is a URL and a bearer token. Search historical comments by subreddit and keyword over plain HTTPS:
cURL
curl "https://api.redditapis.com/api/reddit/search/comments?subreddit=python&q=async&limit=100" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"The response is JSON over HTTPS, so it drops into any language. Endpoint paths and parameters live in the API docs. Run the numbers for your volume with the cost calculator, or see the full per-endpoint rates on the pricing page.
Comparing every option, not just the Pushshift mirrors? The full breakdown of scrapers, the official Reddit Data API, and pay-per-call providers lives on the alternatives page.
See all Reddit API alternativesFrequently asked questions
Not for the public. Pushshift's open, self-serve access was cut off after Reddit's 2023 API changes, and Reddit restricted public and free-tier access to its data API around the same time. The endpoints researchers and developers depended on are no longer available, which is why community mirrors like PullPush appeared.
A maintained REST Reddit data API like Redditapis. Unlike PullPush, Arctic Shift, or static dumps, it is actively run with flat per-call pricing, needs no Reddit app approval, and covers both historical and live search of posts, comments, and users over plain HTTPS.
PullPush is a useful community mirror, but it is volunteer-run and rate-limited. Under load it returns timeouts and data gaps, and it carries no SLA or support. For a hobby query it is fine. For anything production, an unmaintained free mirror is a risk you cannot plan around.
No. There is no Reddit developer-app review, no OAuth client registration, and no approval wait. You create an account, get a bearer token, and call the REST endpoints directly. That removes the 2-to-4-week gate the official Reddit Data API puts in front of new projects.
Yes, within the window Reddit still serves. Redditapis exposes search of past posts and comments by subreddit, author, keyword, and time range, the core job people used Pushshift for, plus live search of current data, over one REST API. One limit to plan around: Reddit caps any single feed at roughly 1,000 items, measured at 983 on our API against 940 on Reddit's own logged-in web client, so this is not a full archive back to 2005 and it does not return posts or comments that have since been deleted or removed.
Pricing is flat and per-call, from $0.002 per read, with no annual contract and no monthly minimum. Votes, writes, and DMs are priced separately. See the per-endpoint breakdown and quick monthly totals on the pricing page to estimate your spend.
What is the best Pushshift alternative in 2026?
The best Pushshift alternative in 2026 is Redditapis, a maintained REST API for historical and live search of Reddit posts, comments, and users after Pushshift lost public access and the free community mirrors went unmaintained. It is billed at a flat $0.002 per read with none of the rate-limit throttling the free mirrors hit under load.
By the numbers
Reddit API pricing and access, by the numbers
Every Redditapis figure resolves to our published per-call rates; every external figure is a primary US source.
Redditapis bills reads at $0.002 per call, votes at $0.005, writes at $0.012, and DMs at $0.025, one flat rate for every account with no minimum spend. (Redditapis pricing, 2026)
Every new account starts with $0.50 in free credits and no card on file, enough for roughly 250 reads before any charge. (Redditapis, 2026)
Reddit's own commercial Data API is priced at $0.24 per 1,000 API calls, the rate that ended third-party apps like Apollo in 2023. (The Verge, 2023)
Reddit's free Data API tier is capped at 100 queries per minute per OAuth client, and 10 queries per minute without OAuth. (Reddit Data API Wiki, 2026)
Reddit signed a reported $60 million-a-year deal to license its data for AI training, a sign of how valuable structured Reddit data has become. (Reuters, 2024)
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