# My Zhihu scraper stopped working: what now? (2026)

2 routes need no scraper: Zhihu's own data platform, with search, a hot list and question answers under its own quotas, or a per-call data API. On the second, zhihu.posts.search gives about 18 answers and articles a page and zhihu.questions.answers.list the first 20 answers to a question with their text, each at $0.0020, with one key and no account or cookie of yours. DataXAPI reads Zhihu with 16 endpoints, from $0.0020 a call; a failed call is not charged.

Updated 2026-11-04

## Zhihu's own platform, and a data API

What Zhihu's column says is from its documents as read on 2026-11-04, and its free quota is called a limited-time offer.

| Job | Zhihu data platform | DataXAPI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Search | `zhihu_search`: up to 10 results, and it says `HasMore` is always false for now | `zhihu.posts.search`: about 18 a page, with further pages; `type` picks answers or articles, `sort` orders by relevance, newest or upvotes |
| A question's answers | `question_answers`: 1 to 50 a request, with paging; each is a summary, not the whole answer | `zhihu.questions.answers.list`: the first 20 in Zhihu's order, one page only, with text, author, upvotes, comment and save counts |
| Comments under an answer | Its documents list comments on your own creations | `zhihu.answers.comments.list`: about 10 a page, by the answer's `id` |
| Quota and price | Its home page says 5,000 free calls a day on signing up. Past the free quota, search and question answers are 20 yuan per 1,000. Question answers share a default of 100 a day | $0.0020 a call, from your balance; a failed call is not charged |

## The rest of what a scraper usually did

`zhihu.questions.get` reads a question: title, details, views; `view=full` adds `ext.answers` and `ext.followers`. `zhihu.answers.get` reads one answer's text and `zhihu.articles.get` one article with its counts. `zhihu.users.answers.list` gives an author's answers, newest first, by the handle in their profile's address. `zhihu.trends.list` gives the hot list, about 30 questions.

You send your key and the question. No signature headers to produce, and no cookie or account of yours.

## What a study comes to

The three lines together come to $0.82. On the command line: `dataxapi call zhihu.posts.search query=咖啡机推荐 type=answer --pages 3 --max-spend 0.006 --out answers.json`.

| Job | Calls | Comes to |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 20 keywords, 3 pages each: about 1,080 answers and articles | 60 × $0.0020 | $0.12 |
| The answers to 50 questions: about 1,000 | 50 × $0.0020 | $0.10 |
| 3 pages of comments under 100 answers: about 3,000 | 300 × $0.0020 | $0.60 |

## Good to know

A question's answers stop at the first 20, so if you need every answer to a big question, this does not do it. Upvotes come in `metrics.likes`. Search results and answer lists have no read counts. It reads public data only and cannot post. How to keep a scraper from being blocked is not something this page covers.

## Endpoints

- [Zhihu content search](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/posts/search/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get a page of Zhihu answers and articles matching a search; either kind alone, by relevance, newest or most upvoted.
- [Zhihu question answers](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/questions/answers/list/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get the first 20 answers to a Zhihu question by ID or link, in Zhihu's own order: text, author, upvotes, comment and save counts. One page only.
- [Zhihu answer comments](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/answers/comments/list/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get a page of comments on a Zhihu answer: text, commenter, likes, reply count, time posted.
- [Zhihu question detail](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/questions/get/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get one Zhihu question by ID or link: title, details, when it was asked, answer, follower and view counts.
- [Zhihu answer detail](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/answers/get/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get one Zhihu answer by ID or link: its question, text, author, time posted.
- [Zhihu article detail](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/articles/get/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get one Zhihu column article by ID or link: title, text, author, upvotes, comment count.
- [Zhihu user answers](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/users/answers/list/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get a page of the answers a Zhihu user has written, newest first.
- [Zhihu hot list](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/trends/list/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get Zhihu's hot list: the questions on it, their rank, heat (approximate) and answer count; an entry's ID is its question's.

## Sources

What this page says of other services is from their own pages and documents, read on 2026-11-04. Prices and features change: check the source before you decide.

- [Zhihu data platform: home page](https://developer.zhihu.com/)
- [Zhihu data platform: prices](https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=billing_price)
- [Zhihu data platform: search API](https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=zhihu_search)
- [Zhihu data platform: question answers API](https://developer.zhihu.com/docs?key=question_answers)

## More about Zhihu

- [Zhihu API](https://dataxapi.com/apis/zhihu/)
- [What is x-zse-96 on Zhihu? (2026)](https://dataxapi.com/answers/zhihu-x-zse-96/)
- [How do I let my AI read Zhihu, Bilibili and Weibo? (2026)](https://dataxapi.com/answers/ai-read-zhihu-bilibili-weibo/)
- [What does Zhihu error 40362 mean? (2026)](https://dataxapi.com/answers/zhihu-40362/)

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Catalog revision bf04cdef3b75e745. [HTML version](https://dataxapi.com/answers/zhihu-scraper-not-working/)