Xiaohongshu data APIs: official, third-party or open-source (2026)

Competitor tracking, topic research and creator shortlists on Xiaohongshu need three things: notes found by keyword, the comments under them, and creator profiles with their posts. Teams often look for an official API first and find that Xiaohongshu's open platforms are about running a shop and buying ads. Public notes come from third-party data services, open-source tools and dashboards. This page starts with what okdata returns, then compares four kinds of option: the official open platforms, third-party data services, open-source crawlers and MCP servers, and subscription dashboards.

What okdata returns and what it costs

okdata is a per-call data API. You need one key and no Xiaohongshu account:

Note search: public notes by keyword, about 20 a page, $0.02 a page.
Note detail: full text, all images and like, save and comment counts, $0.02 a call; for video notes, video note detail adds the video URL and subtitles for $0.02.
Note comments: top-level comments and replies with IP location, $0.02 for a page of about 10, about $2.00 per 1,000.
Creator profiles at $0.02 and creator notes at $0.02 a page.
Account search, trending topics, Pugongying creator profiles and rates, and shop products and reviews have their own endpoints, each priced on its page.

Failed calls are free, and a missing note is not charged on note detail. Sign-up includes $0.10 of trial credit; top-ups start at USD 10 by card, Alipay or WeChat Pay. The same key works for AI agents through MCP.

The comparison

The official platforms are described from Xiaohongshu's own docs, read on 2026-11-12. Third-party and open-source options differ from one to the next, so their rows describe what is typical of the kind.

Option	Data	Cost	Login or cookie	Risk and upkeep	Suits
Xiaohongshu open platform (official)	A shop's products, orders, after-sales, inventory, logistics and finance; no note search or comments	Not stated	Company credentials and shop authorisation; not for individual shops	Compliant; e-commerce only	Merchants and e-commerce vendors
Juguang and Pugongying APIs (official)	An advertiser's own ad reports; comments on its own ad creatives (allow-list); post-campaign data for its sponsored notes, with comment counts but not comment text	Not public	Juguang advertising credentials; Pugongying apps need CNY 5 million spend in the past year	Only your own ads and sponsored notes	Brands and agencies measuring campaigns
okdata	Note search and detail, video URL and subtitles, comments and replies with IP location, creator profiles and notes, account search, trending topics, Pugongying creator profiles and rates, shop products and reviews	Search $0.02 a page, comments $0.02 a page; $0.10 trial	A key, no Xiaohongshu account	Read-only; failed calls free; no view counts	Public data in code or an AI agent
Other third-party data services	Note search, detail, comments, creator info, often with other platforms	Per call or per page; some publish prices, some show them after sign-up	The service's key	Rules differ on charging failed calls, empty results and missing notes	Developers wiring data into code at volume
No-code scraping tools	Search, note detail, comments, exported as JSON or CSV	Per result or per run	Some need no login, some need a cookie	Scrapers are often maintained by third-party developers and can break when the site changes	Occasional exports without code
Open-source crawlers	Keyword search, notes, second-level comments, creator pages	Free; your machine and proxies	QR, SMS code or cookie login	Some licences allow learning and research only, no commercial use; you fix breakages	Learning, research, small one-off jobs
Open-source MCP servers (self-hosted)	Search, note detail and comments, profiles; some can also post and comment	Free	QR login with your own account	Every action is your account's	Letting AI run your own account
Subscription dashboards	Notes, creators, brand campaigns, comment search, dashboards with exports	Monthly or yearly memberships, export quotas by tier	A dashboard account	Usually no public API	Marketers who do not code

The official platforms do not read public notes

The Xiaohongshu open platform at open.xiaohongshu.com is an e-commerce platform: its API catalogue covers common, orders, after-sales, products, inventory, materials, logistics, finance, instant retail, membership and suppliers. Joining needs company credentials, and a merchant building its own app cannot be an individual shop. The developer agreement also forbids using user data for anything outside the app.

The marketing open platform bundles Juguang, Pugongying, private-message tools and Qianfan, and needs Juguang advertising credentials; a Pugongying app needs CNY 5 million of Pugongying spend in the past year. Its data endpoints are about your own campaigns: ad-creative comments are allow-list only and cover your own ad creatives, and Pugongying post-campaign data covers registered sponsored notes within a 30-day span and returns a comment count, not the comments. Other people's notes, comments and creator data are not available officially; see does Xiaohongshu have an official API.

Third-party data services

These services turn public data into HTTP endpoints you call with their key, with no Xiaohongshu account. okdata is one of them, with the endpoints and prices above. When you compare services of this kind, check three things:

Unit price and unit: per call, per page or per item, and how many items a page holds. Some publish prices on their site; others show them only after sign-up.
What gets charged: bad parameters, errors and timeouts; empty search results, deleted notes and IDs that do not exist. Some services bill a missing note ID or an empty result at full price, which adds up at volume.
Fields and coverage: whether comments include second-level replies and IP location, and whether video notes come with the video URL and subtitles.

No-code scraping tools can also export Xiaohongshu notes and comments: you pick a scraper someone else wrote, enter keywords and download JSON or CSV, paying per result. That suits an occasional export; for a long-running integration you wait for the maintainer whenever the scraper breaks.

Open-source crawlers and MCP servers

Open-source Xiaohongshu crawlers on GitHub search notes and read comments, and some fetch second-level comments and creator pages. Most of them log in by QR code, SMS code or an imported cookie. Several well-starred projects say in their licence or README that they are for learning and research only and forbid commercial use, so read the licence first.

Open-source Xiaohongshu MCP servers are built for AI: they run a local MCP server so Claude or Cursor can search notes, read comments and view creators, and some can also post and comment. They log in with your own account by QR code, and some require that the same account is not logged in on another web client at the same time.

Whatever such a tool does is done by your account. Xiaohongshu's user agreement forbids taking its videos, posts and user information by "illegal scraping" or "simulated downloads"; see account ban risk. For the costs of running a crawler against paying per call, see scraping it yourself vs a per-call data API; for MCP options in AI clients, see MCP servers for Xiaohongshu, Douyin and WeChat.

Subscription dashboards

Dashboards focused on Xiaohongshu sell monthly or yearly memberships for browsing notes, creators and brand campaigns, some with comment search, and limit exports by tier. They suit marketing teams who do not code. To feed data into your own system or an AI agent, these dashboards usually have no public API, so you need a data API.

How to choose

Merchant integrating orders and products: the Xiaohongshu open platform.
Brand measuring its own ads and sponsored notes: the Juguang and Pugongying APIs, or their back offices.
Other people's notes, comments and creators, in code or an agent: a third-party data service such as okdata; compare unit price and what empty or deleted results cost.
AI that posts and replies as you: an open-source Xiaohongshu MCP server.
Learning or one-off research, accepting account risk: an open-source crawler.
Marketers browsing data without code: a subscription dashboard.

What okdata does not do

It cannot post, comment, like, save or message.
View counts are not public on Xiaohongshu, so they come back null with the reason in meta.unavailable.
It cannot see logged-in-only content such as the home feed or private notes.
It has no private Pugongying back-office data such as your orders and sponsored-note reports; creator profiles and rates have their own Pugongying creator endpoint at $0.04.

Try it

Sign-up includes $0.10 of trial credit, no card needed:

curl -G "https://api.okdata.online/v1/xiaohongshu/notes/search" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OKDATA_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode 'query=coffee machine'

Pass a note id from the results to the comments endpoint to page through its comments. The full flow is in export Xiaohongshu note comments, and AI clients connect through the MCP page.

Questions

Does Xiaohongshu have an official data API?

It has two open platforms and neither reads public notes. One is for e-commerce; the Juguang and Pugongying APIs read an advertiser's own campaigns and sponsored notes, with comment text only for allow-listed ad creatives.

What does a Xiaohongshu comment API cost?

On okdata, $0.02 for a page of about 10 comments, about $2.00 per 1,000, with failed calls free. Other third-party services charge per call, per page or per item, and some show prices only after sign-up; when you compare, count what empty results and missing notes cost.

Can I get notes and comments without logging in?

Yes, through third-party data services and some no-code scraping tools, which do not use your Xiaohongshu account. Open-source crawlers and MCP servers usually log in.

Can I get a note's view count?

Not from any public route: Xiaohongshu does not publish note views. Likes, saves, comments and shares are available.

Is collecting Xiaohongshu comments legal?

China's Personal Information Protection Law allows handling information people made public themselves within a reasonable scope, with conditions and exceptions. Keeping comment text and dropping commenter identities lowers the risk a lot; see is collecting Xiaohongshu comments legal under PIPL, and ask a lawyer about a specific project.