YouTube Comments Scraper & API Client for JavaScript / TypeScript

The official JavaScript & TypeScript SDK for the FetchLayer YouTube Comments API.

Scrape YouTube comments. Pull nested replies. Get likes, authors, and dates. All as clean JSON from a single API — no Google Cloud project, no OAuth, no HTML parsing.

Open-source SDK, hosted API. This package is MIT-licensed. The API requires a free FetchLayer API key — no subscriptions, no contracts, no lock-in. Pay only for what you use.

---

Install

npm install @fetchlayer/youtube

pnpm add @fetchlayer/youtube

yarn add @fetchlayer/youtube

Get your API key

1. Go to fetchlayer.dev
2. Sign in with your email
3. Copy your API key from the dashboard

That's it. No credit card. No trial expiration. You get free requests to start, then pay-as-you-go when you need more.

Quick start

import { FetchLayerYoutube } from "@fetchlayer/youtube";

const youtube = new FetchLayerYoutube({
  apiKey: process.env.FETCHLAYER_API_KEY!,
});

// Scrape comments from any YouTube video
const comments = await youtube.getComments({
  videoUrl: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  sort: "top",
  depth: 1,
  pages: 2,
});

console.log(comments);

That's 4 lines to get structured YouTube comment data. No Google Cloud setup, no OAuth dance, no broken scrapers.

---

Why use this instead of scraping YouTube yourself

Problem	FetchLayer
YouTube blocks your IP	We handle rotation and resilience
HTML structure changes break your parser	You get stable JSON
YouTube Data API needs a Google Cloud project + quota	Simple Bearer token, no quota
Maintaining scraping infra is a full-time job	npm install and done
You need comments AND nested replies	One endpoint, one SDK

---

All methods

const youtube = new FetchLayerYoutube({ apiKey });

Method	What it does
youtube.getComments(params)	Scrape comments and nested replies from a video

---

Examples

Scrape top comments from a video

const response = await youtube.getComments({
  videoUrl: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  sort: "top", // "top" (most liked) or "newest"
  depth: 1,    // include one level of replies
  pages: 3,    // scroll for more comments
});

for (const comment of response.comments ?? []) {
  console.log(`${comment.username}: ${comment.comment}`);
  console.log(`  ${comment.likes} likes · ${comment.date}`);
}

Get the latest discussion

const response = await youtube.getComments({
  videoUrl: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  sort: "newest",
  pages: 5,
});

Walk nested replies

const response = await youtube.getComments({
  videoUrl: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  depth: 2,
});

for (const comment of response.comments ?? []) {
  console.log(`@${comment.username}: ${comment.comment}`);
  for (const reply of comment.nestedReplies ?? []) {
    console.log(`  ↳ @${reply.username}: ${reply.comment}`);
  }
}

---

Error handling

import { FetchLayerYoutube, FetchLayerError } from "@fetchlayer/youtube";

try {
  const comments = await youtube.getComments({ videoUrl: "https://..." });
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof FetchLayerError) {
    console.error(err.status); // 401, 429, etc.
    console.error(err.message); // Human-readable error from the API
  }
}

---

Configuration

const youtube = new FetchLayerYoutube({
  apiKey: "your-key",     // Required
  baseUrl: "...",         // Default: https://api.fetchlayer.dev/youtube
  timeoutMs: 120000,      // Default: 120s
  fetch: customFetch,    // Default: global fetch (Node 18+)
});

---

What this package is

• Zero dependencies — uses native fetch, nothing else
• Dual build — ESM + CommonJS, works everywhere
• Fully typed — TypeScript declarations included
• Tiny — under 6 KB bundled
• Open source — MIT license, contributions welcome

How it works

You call FetchLayer → FetchLayer returns structured YouTube comment data as JSON → you use it however you want.

No YouTube account needed. No Google Cloud project. No scraping infrastructure on your end.

---

Pricing

Free tier	Included with every account — start building immediately
Pay-as-you-go	$1.99 per 1,000 requests. Credits never expire.
Subscriptions	Available for heavy use — predictable pricing at scale
Rate limits	None

No credit card required to start. No monthly commitment. No overages. Get your API key →

---

Use cases

• Audience research — find what viewers ask, praise, and complain about in the comments
• Content research — discover recurring questions and content requests for your next video
• Competitive intelligence — monitor comments on competitor videos and launches
• Sentiment analysis — pull comments and run NLP on real viewer opinions
• Community management — track feedback and engagement across your channel
• AI agents — give your LLM real-time YouTube context via FetchLayer's MCP server

---

Links

Get API key	fetchlayer.dev/signin
Product page	fetchlayer.dev/youtube-comments-api
Homepage	fetchlayer.dev
npm	@fetchlayer/youtube
Issues	GitHub Issues

---

License

MIT — see LICENSE.