6 Best ExportComments Alternatives for Comment Export (2026)

The main ExportComments alternatives are InsightSocial (a Chrome extension: scraping is free, 500 exported rows a month, comment threads with replies on 6 social platforms), Apify's comment scrapers (cloud, pay per result, $5 free a month), PhantomBuster (comment-to-outreach automation, from $69 a month), Instant Data Scraper (free, generic), the YouTube Data API (free quota, YouTube only) and Thunderbit (AI scraping, from $15 a month). ExportComments still fits one-off exports and the review sites only it covers, such as Yelp and TripAdvisor.

We make InsightSocial, so we are not neutral. Prices for the other tools were checked on their own pages on October 18, 2026.

ExportComments is simple: paste a post URL, get the comments back as a spreadsheet. For a single viral post, that is what you want. When comment export becomes recurring work (giveaway picking, audience research, UGC rights requests), the per-export caps start to matter. This guide covers where ExportComments pinches, then compares six alternatives with notes on where each falls short.

Why People Look for ExportComments Alternatives

The same complaints come up repeatedly from people shopping for a replacement:

1. The free tier is a demo, not a plan

The free tier caps out at 100 results per export and 50 exports a month (checked October 2026). That's enough to confirm the tool works, and not enough for any real analysis of a post with an active comment section.

2. Per-export caps mean big threads get truncated

Paid plans raise the cap per export (into the thousands, then tens of thousands on higher tiers), but the cap is still per export, per link. A genuinely viral post can blow past your tier's limit, and the comments beyond it simply don't come back.

3. One link at a time

The core workflow is paste-a-URL, wait in the queue, download, repeat. ExportComments now lists automated workflows that chain exports together, but there is no one-click "export comments from this creator's last 30 posts": you paste those links one by one and merge the files.

4. Pricing climbs fast for what it is

Premium-level plans run around $45/month and business tiers around $199/month. ExportComments covers more than comments (posts, X replies, followers, reviews), but if comments are all you need, multi-platform extensions cost the same or less.

If several of these resonate, one of the tools below will probably fit you better.

Quick Comparison

1. InsightSocial: Comments and the Posts Above Them, in One Run

InsightSocial is our Chrome extension. It exports comments (with replies, likes, timestamps, and commenter usernames) from TikTok, YouTube, X replies, LinkedIn and Reddit, directly in your browser.

The workflow difference from ExportComments is that one run can cover many posts. Open a single post and scrape its thread, or open a subreddit and choose Posts and Comments: it collects a number of posts and then visits each one to extract its comments. One run, one export.

Pricing meters only what you export, at 1 credit per exported row. Scraping a thread and reading it in the dashboard is free and unlimited, so you see the comment count before you spend anything. How many comments a run takes depends on the platform: up to the number you pick on TikTok (50, 100 or 250 top-level comments, with their replies) and YouTube (100, 250 or 500). Free plan: 500 export credits a month. Pro: $9.99/month for 10,000 export credits, or $95.88/year ($7.99/month).

Setup is install → open the post or profile → click Scrape → export to Excel, CSV, JSON or Google Sheets from your results page. Because it runs inside your own logged-in browser session, the platform sees ordinary browsing from your usual IP: no queue, no third-party server touching the post.

Pros:

• Scraping a full thread is free: you only spend credits on the rows you export
• Bulk mode: posts and their comments from a subreddit in one session
• Replies keep their parent-comment link, not flattened
• Also exports the posts themselves (engagement, timestamps, authors), not just comments
• Free tier: unlimited scraping and 500 export rows a month
• Schedulable: a creator's scrape can re-run daily or weekly on its own; you export from the results page

Cons:

• Chrome has to be open for a run, including scheduled ones; the paste-a-URL web tool covers one TikTok video's first 50 comments, nothing more
• TikTok and YouTube runs stop at the comment count you pick (presets of 50 to 250 on TikTok, 100 to 500 on YouTube), so a huge thread is not collected in full by default
• Comments-plus-posts runs exist on subreddits, not on TikTok, YouTube or X accounts
• Very large threads take real time in your browser

Only need one video’s comments? Paste the link into the free TikTok Comment Exporter, nothing to install

Best for: marketers, community managers, and researchers who export comments regularly and want threads complete, structured, and free to collect before deciding what to keep.

2. Apify Comment Actors: For Developers Piping Comments Somewhere

Apify's marketplace has dedicated comment-scraper Actors for TikTok, YouTube and other major networks. They run in the cloud, output JSON or CSV, and can be scheduled or triggered by API, which makes them the right shape if comments need to land in a database rather than a spreadsheet.

Pricing stacks a plan fee, compute units, and per-result Actor fees, which makes costs hard to predict. We've broken this down in detail in our Apify alternatives guide.

Pros:

• API-first: pipe comments straight into your own systems
• Scheduling, webhooks, and storage built in
• Handles very large jobs if you're willing to pay for them

Cons:

• Per-result pricing re-creates ExportComments' metering problem, with extra layers
• Actor quality varies; datacenter IPs get challenged by social platforms
• Real setup work for non-developers

Best for: engineering-adjacent teams who need comments delivered to systems, not spreadsheets.

3. PhantomBuster: Comments as a Step in an Outreach Chain

PhantomBuster's Phantoms can extract commenters from social posts and then feed them into follow-up automations: auto-follows, DMs, enrichment. If the reason you're exporting comments is to contact the commenters, that chaining is the draw.

Pricing: a Free plan with 30 minutes of run time a month and 10-row exports, then $69/month (Start), per its own pricing post.

Pros:

• Scrape-then-outreach workflows in one product
• Cloud scheduling: runs while your laptop is closed
• Mature ecosystem of pre-built automations

Cons:

• Expensive if you only want the export half
• Runs with your session cookies from cloud IPs: account-risk trade-offs are real (see our PhantomBuster alternatives guide)
• Comment output is geared to lead lists, not complete threaded archives

Best for: sales and growth teams who treat commenters as leads and accept the account risk.

4. Instant Data Scraper: Free, Generic, One Page at a Time

Instant Data Scraper is a free Chrome extension that detects tables and lists on whatever page you're on and exports them. Point it at a visible comment section and it will often grab usernames and comment text serviceably.

Pros:

• Completely free, no account
• Works on many sites, not just social platforms

Cons:

• No understanding of comment structure: nested replies, like counts, and timestamps are flattened or missed
• Infinite-scroll comment sections load unreliably; you babysit the scroll
• One page at a time, no bulk mode, no post metadata

Best for: a quick one-off grab where "usernames and text in a CSV" is good enough.

5. YouTube Data API: Free and Official, for One Platform

For YouTube specifically, the official Data API's commentThreads endpoint is genuinely good: complete threads, reply structure, like counts, and a free daily quota that covers most channels' needs. It's the rare official social API that actually serves this use case.

Pros:

• Free quota is generous for comment reading
• Official and stable: no scraping fragility
• Full thread structure including replies

Cons:

• YouTube only: nothing for TikTok, X or Reddit
• You write code (or wrangle scripts) to use it; output is JSON
• Quota accounting becomes a real constraint at large scale

Best for: developers with a YouTube-only requirement. If that's you, start here before paying anyone.

6. Thunderbit: AI Scraping That Includes Comment Sections

Thunderbit's AI-driven extraction works on almost any page, comment sections included. As with Instant Data Scraper, the generalist approach cuts both ways: it extracts something nearly everywhere, but social-specific structure is shallower than a dedicated tool's output, a trade-off we cover in our Thunderbit alternatives guide.

Pricing: one credit per output row. The free plan covers about 6 pages; Starter is $15/month for 500 credits, so a 2,000-comment thread needs a bigger plan.

Pros:

• One tool for comments today, product listings tomorrow
• AI field detection: no templates to build

Cons:

• Long comment threads use credits fast, one per row
• Nested reply structure and per-comment metadata are hit-or-miss

Best for: people whose comment exports are occasional and who scrape many other kinds of pages.

Exporting Reviews Instead of Comments

ExportComments is not only a comment tool. It also exports reviews, with an /export-{site}-reviews page for about 20 review sites: Trustpilot, Amazon, Google, Etsy, Steam, Product Hunt, Yelp, TripAdvisor, the App Store, Airbnb, AliExpress, Best Buy, the Chrome Web Store, Expedia, Flipkart, IMDb, Lazada, Shopee and Walmart, among others (counted from its sitemap, October 2026). It also lists sentiment analysis of exported comments as a use case.

InsightSocial covers fewer review sites: 10. Six overlap with ExportComments; four are discussion sites ExportComments has no page for.

The pricing models differ the same way they do for comments. ExportComments caps results per export: the free tier returns up to 100 results per export, Personal is $23 once for 3 days at up to 5,000 per export, Premium $45 a month at up to 50,000, and Business $199 a month at up to 250,000 with API access (checked October 2026). InsightSocial meters rows per month: scraping is free, the free plan exports 500 rows a month, Pro $9.99 exports 10,000 and Studio $49 exports 150,000, and a row you already exported is free to export again.

InsightSocial is also one page per run on review sites: there is no list-of-URLs input and no scheduling for them. If you need dozens of companies on a schedule, or one of the review sites it does not cover, ExportComments' Premium plan or a cloud tool is the better fit. The how-to guides for each site: Trustpilot, Google reviews, Amazon, Etsy, Steam, Product Hunt, Hacker News and Quora, and the full list of review scrapers.

Which Should You Choose?

• Regular comment exports, complete threads, nothing charged for scraping → InsightSocial
• Comments flowing into a database or pipeline → Apify comment Actors
• Exporting commenters to contact them → PhantomBuster
• A free one-off grab, structure optional → Instant Data Scraper
• YouTube only, developer available → YouTube Data API
• Occasional comments plus lots of non-social scraping → Thunderbit
• One viral post, once, under the free cap → honestly, ExportComments is fine

The dividing line is frequency. If you export comments once a quarter, a per-export tool is tolerable. If it's part of your workflow, per-export pricing and per-link caps are exactly the wrong model: you want a tool that collects the whole thread for free and only charges for the rows you decide to keep.

FAQ

Is there a free way to export all comments from a post? InsightSocial's free plan scrapes threads for free (up to the count you pick on TikTok and YouTube) and gives you 500 export rows a month, so you see the conversation before spending anything. ExportComments' free tier stops around 100 comments per post, and Instant Data Scraper is free but loses thread structure. For YouTube alone, the official API's free quota also works if you can code.

Can I export comments from multiple posts at once? With InsightSocial, yes: Posts and Comments mode on a subreddit collects a number of posts and then each post's comments in one run. TikTok and YouTube accounts don't have that mode. ExportComments' automated workflows chain exports; check which plan includes them.

Do these tools capture nested replies? InsightSocial and the YouTube Data API preserve reply structure (parent-comment relationships, reply counts). Generic scrapers like Instant Data Scraper typically flatten or miss replies. On ExportComments, reply coverage varies by platform.

Is exporting comments legal? Comments on public posts are publicly visible data, and collecting them for analysis is broadly accepted, but personal-data rules apply to what you do afterwards, especially if you contact commenters. Platform terms also apply. Talk to a lawyer before building anything commercial on commenters' personal data.

Why did my export come back with fewer comments than the post shows? On per-export tools, you likely hit your tier's cap for that link. Platforms also hide some comments (spam-filtered, restricted, or deleted), so no tool returns the exact on-screen count. If the gap is large and consistent, the cap is the usual culprit.

Which ExportComments alternative also exports reviews? InsightSocial exports reviews from 10 review and discussion sites: Trustpilot, Amazon, Google Maps, Etsy, Steam, Product Hunt, Hacker News, Quora, Blind and Notion. ExportComments covers about 20 review sites, including Yelp, TripAdvisor and the App Store, which InsightSocial does not. For many companies on a schedule, cloud tools such as Outscraper or Apify fit better.

Does exporting comments risk my account? Browser-extension scraping happens in your own logged-in session at browsing pace, which is the conservative end of the spectrum. Cloud tools access posts from datacenter IPs, which platforms flag more readily. No method is entirely risk-free; pace and volume moderation matter with any of them.

Install InsightSocial free and export your first comment thread: unlimited scraping and 500 free export rows every month.