# SocialCrawl alternative for Douyin, Xiaohongshu and WeChat data

Scraping Douyin and Xiaohongshu yourself means maintaining logins, anti-bot handling and parsers; a data API is called with a key. SocialCrawl charges 5 credits a row returned on Douyin and Xiaohongshu and has no WeChat; for Official Accounts, Channels, WeChat Search and deeper Douyin and Xiaohongshu data, DataXAPI fits. DataXAPI's endpoints here are from $0.0020 a call, and a failed call is not charged; what others charge and do was checked on 2026-10-29, each with its source below.

## SocialCrawl and DataXAPI side by side

SocialCrawl charges in credits bought in pounds: Starter is £15 for 2,500 credits, £0.006 a credit; Pro is £299 for 150,000, about £0.002 a credit. The pound figures below use these two packs.

| Item | SocialCrawl | DataXAPI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Douyin search, 20 videos | 5 credits a row returned, 100 for 20: £0.60 on Starter, about £0.20 on Pro; up to 25 rows a call | $0.0200 a page, usually 8 and up to 20 videos |
| Douyin plays | Returned as null; its docs say Douyin does not publish plays off the platform | douyin.videos.metrics gives a video's plays and likes, $0.0020 a call |
| Xiaohongshu search, 20 notes | 5 credits a row returned, 100 for 20 | $0.0200 a page, usually 20 notes |
| WeChat | Official Accounts, Channels and WeChat Search not listed on its pages (2026-10-29) | Official Account article lists, text, reads and comments; Channels videos and comments; WeChat Search |
| Other Chinese platforms | Bilibili, Weibo and Zhihu not listed on its pages (2026-10-29); its list has only `kwai` | Kuaishou, Bilibili, Weibo, Zhihu |
| Freshness | Cached, and cache hits are free: profiles about 15 minutes, posts about 10, comments about 5, search about 2 | Fetched at call time; every response carries `meta.fetched_at` |
| Charging | Credits come back when the upstream errs, times out or returns nothing; it says you pay only for calls that return data; batch-by-ID endpoints charge per block of 50 IDs | Failed calls, timeouts and objects that do not exist are not charged; many list endpoints charge an empty result, as each endpoint's price says |
| Payment | Pounds only on its pages; 100 credits on sign-up with no card; credits never expire | A US-dollar balance from $10; Alipay paying in yuan, or a card; $0.10 on sign-up; the balance never expires |
| MCP | Local only, `npx socialcrawl-mcp`, with the key in `SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY`; no remote address; OAuth not listed on its pages (2026-10-29) | Remote, `https://api.dataxapi.com/mcp`, with `Authorization: Bearer <key>` or OAuth |
| Files for AI and languages | `llms.txt`, `llms-full.txt`, an `llms-{platform}.txt` for each platform, `.md` platform pages; English and Korean | `llms.txt`, `/zh/llms.txt`, `llms-full.txt`, a `.md` version of each page, `openapi.json`, `prices.json`; English and Chinese |

## Where SocialCrawl is better

**Broad coverage outside China**: many endpoints for LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube, plus e-commerce, Google, Naver, Polymarket and more. For work mainly outside China it offers more to choose from.

**Gentler billing**: it charges per row returned, so fewer rows cost less; empty results, timeouts and upstream errors get their credits back; cache hits are free. DataXAPI charges per page, and many list endpoints charge an empty result.

**More material for AI and people**: an `llms` file for each platform, dated the day it was written; an `estimate` tool in its MCP server that needs no key; Korean pages.

## How DataXAPI differs

**All of WeChat**: Official Account article lists, text, reads and featured comments; Channels videos, collections and comments; articles and videos from WeChat Search. **Deeper Douyin and Xiaohongshu**: beyond search, profiles and comments, Douyin plays, Douyin's Xingtu and trend index, Xiaohongshu comment replies, Xiaohongshu's PGY.

Fetched at call time, with `meta.fetched_at` on every response. A remote MCP address, with OAuth for ChatGPT and Claude connectors and nothing to install. Pages in Chinese and English; Alipay paying in yuan, or a card, into a US-dollar balance.

## Who should pick which

Mostly platforms outside China, LinkedIn or e-commerce data, paying in pounds, paying only for rows returned: SocialCrawl.

The Chinese market, Official Accounts, Channels and WeChat Search, Bilibili, Weibo and Zhihu, Douyin plays and Xiaohongshu comment replies, a direct connector in ChatGPT or Claude, paying by Alipay: DataXAPI. They also work together: SocialCrawl for platforms outside China, DataXAPI for Chinese ones.

## How to switch

**Douyin**: search becomes douyin.videos.search (`query`, optionally `sort` and `published_within`); profile becomes douyin.users.get and the video list douyin.users.videos.list, both taking `id` (the sec_uid starting `MS4w`) or `url`; a single video becomes douyin.videos.get; comments become douyin.videos.comments.list and replies douyin.comments.replies.list (`id` the comment, `post_id` the video); user search becomes douyin.users.search; the hot search list becomes douyin.trends.list.

**Xiaohongshu**: search becomes xiaohongshu.notes.search, profile xiaohongshu.users.get, the note list xiaohongshu.users.notes.list, note details xiaohongshu.notes.get, comments xiaohongshu.notes.comments.list.

**Everywhere**: the key goes in `Authorization: Bearer <key>`; lists are in `data.items`; for the next page pass `page.next_cursor` back as `cursor`, within the hour.

## Questions

**Can SocialCrawl get Official Account articles?** Its platform list has no WeChat, Official Accounts, Channels or WeChat Search (2026-10-29). DataXAPI's wechat_mp.accounts.articles.list lists an account's articles by its original ID, $0.0200 a page.

**Why are SocialCrawl's Douyin plays null?** Its docs say Douyin does not publish plays off the platform. DataXAPI's douyin.videos.metrics returns a video's plays and likes by its ID.

**Is a call with no results charged?** SocialCrawl gives the credits back for an empty result. Many of DataXAPI's list endpoints charge an empty result, as each endpoint's price says; objects that do not exist and failed calls are not charged.

## Endpoints

- [Douyin video search](https://dataxapi.com/apis/douyin/videos/search/) ($0.0200 / a call): Search Douyin videos by terms, a page at a time, sorted by relevance, newest or most liked and filtered by time posted: caption, author with follower count, engagement counts.
- [Douyin video play count](https://dataxapi.com/apis/douyin/videos/metrics/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get a Douyin video's counts as of now, by its ID: plays and likes.
- [Douyin video comments](https://dataxapi.com/apis/douyin/videos/comments/list/) ($0.0020 / a call): Get a page of comments on a Douyin video: text, commenter, likes, reply count, time posted.
- [Xiaohongshu note search](https://dataxapi.com/apis/xiaohongshu/notes/search/) ($0.0200 / a call): Search Xiaohongshu notes by terms: title, text, author, engagement counts, images, and a link that opens.
- [WeChat Official Account articles](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat_mp/accounts/articles/list/) ($0.0200 / a call): Get a page of the articles a WeChat Official Account published, newest first: title, digest, link, time published.
- [WeChat Search articles and videos](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat/posts/search/) ($0.0200 / a call): Get a page of WeChat Search results for search terms: Official Account articles and Channels videos mixed, each saying in type whether it is an article or a video; by relevance, newest or hottest, filtered by time posted: title or description, the source account's name, time published, an article's link, a video's likes and saves. WeChat Search gives no account ID.

## How-to guides

- [How to export Douyin video comments in bulk](https://dataxapi.com/guides/douyin-video-comments/)
- [How to search and export Xiaohongshu (RedNote) notes by keyword](https://dataxapi.com/guides/xiaohongshu-search-export-notes/)
- [How to list a WeChat Official Account's past articles](https://dataxapi.com/guides/wechat-official-account-articles/)

## Sources

What this page says of other services is from their own pages and documents, read on 2026-10-29. Prices and features change: check the source before you decide.

- [SocialCrawl pricing](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/pricing)
- [SocialCrawl llms.txt](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/llms.txt)
- [SocialCrawl llms-full.txt](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/llms-full.txt)
- [SocialCrawl Douyin page](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/platforms/douyin.md)
- [SocialCrawl Douyin endpoints file](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/llms-douyin.txt)
- [SocialCrawl Xiaohongshu endpoints file](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/llms-xiaohongshu.txt)
- [SocialCrawl MCP server](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/mcp-server)
- [SocialCrawl sitemap (Korean pages)](https://www.socialcrawl.dev/sitemap.xml)

## More about Douyin

- [Douyin API](https://dataxapi.com/apis/douyin/)
- [Xiaohongshu (RedNote) API](https://dataxapi.com/apis/xiaohongshu/)
- [WeChat Official Accounts API](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat_mp/)
- [WeChat Search API](https://dataxapi.com/apis/wechat/)
- [How do I export Douyin data?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/export-douyin-data/)
- [What is sec_uid on Douyin, and how is it different from uid and the Douyin ID?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/douyin-sec-uid/)
- [What are aweme_id and modal_id on Douyin, and what is a v.douyin.com link?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/douyin-aweme-id-modal-id/)
- [Is the Douyin search index a number of searches?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/douyin-search-index-vs-search-count/)
- [What is the Douyin keyword index (Ocean Engine)?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/what-is-douyin-keyword-index-ocean-engine/)
- [What is Douyin Xingtu?](https://dataxapi.com/answers/what-is-douyin-xingtu/)
- [How to get Douyin keyword trends in bulk](https://dataxapi.com/guides/douyin-keyword-trends/)
- [How to look up a Douyin creator's Xingtu rate card](https://dataxapi.com/guides/douyin-xingtu-creator-rates/)

---

Catalog revision 5c3194deef3264cc. [HTML version](https://dataxapi.com/compare/socialcrawl-alternative/)