OpenAlex Works Scraper — Papers, Citations & Authors

What this Actor scrapes

OpenAlex replaced Microsoft Academic Graph as the open citation index, and it is the only free source that covers authors, institutions and citation counts in one record. The API is generous but its records nest authorships, locations and open-access blocks several levels deep. This Actor flattens each work into one row with the author and institution lists already joined, so a literature landscape or a citation report lands straight in a spreadsheet.

What we handle for you

• 🛡️ Browser fingerprint rotation — the target sees a real browser TLS handshake, not a script.
• 🌐 Proxy rotation — fresh exit on every block through Apify Proxy.
• 🔁 Retries with backoff — 408 / 429 / 5xx retried up to five times, Retry-After honoured.
• 🧊 Clean, typed rows — schema-validated output with ISO-8601 timestamps.
• 💰 Pay per result — no data, no result charge.

Use cases

• Build a literature landscape for a research area with citation counts attached.
• Find which institutions publish most in a field before a partnership or hiring decision.
• Track a competitor lab's output and how often it gets cited.
• Assemble an open-access-only reading list you can actually download.

Input

Paste this into the Apify Console, or send it as the run input over the API. Proxy settings are on by default; you rarely need to touch them.

{
  "searchQuery": "large language models",
  "fromPublicationDate": "2025-01-01",
  "maxResults": 3,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

Output

One row per result, schema-validated before it is written. Export JSON, CSV, Excel or XML from the run, or read it over the API.

openalex_iddoititlepublication_yearpublication_datetypelanguagecited_by_countis_open_accessoa_statussource_namelanding_page_urlpdf_urlauthorsfirst_authorinstitutions

{}

Pricing

You pay only for results that land. Cap any run with maxTotalChargeUsd. See pricing & billing for worked examples.

Limitations

• Metadata and links only — it does not download PDFs or reconstruct abstracts.
• Citation counts are OpenAlex's own and will differ from Scopus or Web of Science.