[opensourcedex]

praw is a free, open source social networking project written in Python and released under BSD-2-Clause. It has 4,256 GitHub stars, 501 forks and 0 open issues, and was last pushed 3 days ago. On this registry it ranks #13 of 44 tracked projects in Social Networking, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 2 stars over the last 3 tracked days.

What is praw?

What it is

PRAW is the Python Reddit API Wrapper, a Python package for simple access to Reddit's API. It lives in the Python ecosystem and is classified under community and social networking tooling. The project uses the BSD-2-Clause license and has a sixteen-year repository age, with a last push date of 2026-09-14. The repository lists 4254 stars and 500 forks.

The concrete problem it solves is providing a Python interface to Reddit's API while handling API rules internally. The README says PRAW aims to be easy to use, follows all Reddit API rules, and removes the need for sleep calls in user code. A client with an appropriate user agent can be set, reducing manual API etiquette handling.

Key capabilities

  • PRAW provides programmatic access to Reddit's API through a Python package interface.
  • It supports OAuth-based access, including script-type OAuth application credentials in the quickstart example.
  • It can create submissions, reply to known submissions, and reply to comments in moderated communities.
  • It can read frontpage hot listings with limits, such as outputting scores for the first 256 items.
  • It can retrieve subreddit moderator listings and follows Reddit API rules internally without manual sleep calls.
  • It supports Python 3.10 and later, as stated in the installation guidance.

Who uses it and how

  • Python developers use it to build Reddit clients with script-type OAuth application credentials.
  • Moderators can use it to inspect moderated subreddit content and reply automatically to top weekly submissions.
  • Data readers can iterate over frontpage hot listings and collect submission scores.
  • Beginners can seek support through the r/learnpython subreddit, as recommended by the README.

Getting started

PRAW is supported on Python 3.10 and later. The README recommends uv add praw, lists pip install praw as an alternative, and notes the latest development version can be installed from the main GitHub archive. Documentation is hosted at praw.readthedocs.io.

When to use it — and when not to

PRAW is appropriate for synchronous Python projects that can provide an appropriate user agent and OAuth credentials. It is less suitable for asynchronous environments such as discord.py or asyncio, where the README recommends Async PRAW instead. As a library, it requires users to operate their own Python runtime and manage Reddit API credentials; no database, storage, SMTP, or paid-product comparison is mentioned.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

##################################### PRAW: The Python Reddit API Wrapper #####################################

.. image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/praw.svg :alt: Latest PRAW Version :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/praw

.. image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/praw :alt: Supported Python Versions :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/praw

.. image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/dm/praw :alt: PyPI - Downloads - Monthly :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/praw

.. image:: https://github.com/praw-dev/praw/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg?event=push :alt: GitHub Actions Status :target: https://github.com/praw-dev/praw/actions/workflows/ci.yml

.. image:: https://api.securityscorecards.dev/projects/github.com/praw-dev/praw/badge :alt: OpenSSF Scorecard :target: https://api.securityscorecards.dev/projects/github.com/praw-dev/praw

.. image:: https://img.shields.io/badge/Contributor%20Covenant-v2.0%20adopted-ff69b4.svg :alt: Contributor Covenant :target: https://github.com/praw-dev/.github/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

.. image:: https://img.shields.io/badge/pre--commit-enabled-brightgreen?logo=pre-commit&logoColor=white :alt: pre-commit :target: https://github.com/pre-commit/pre-commit

.. image:: https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/astral-sh/ruff/main/assets/badge/v2.json :alt: Ruff :target: https://github.com/astral-sh/ruff

PRAW, an acronym for "Python Reddit API Wrapper", is a Python package that allows for simple access to Reddit's API. PRAW aims to be easy to use and internally follows all of Reddit's API rules _. With PRAW there's no need to introduce sleep calls in your code. Give your client an appropriate user agent and you're set.

.. _installation:

Installation

PRAW is supported on Python 3.10+. The recommended way to install PRAW is with uv _.

.. code-block:: bash

uv add praw

Alternatively, PRAW can be installed via pip _:

.. code-block:: bash

pip install praw

To install the latest development version of PRAW run the following instead:

.. code-block:: bash

pip install --upgrade https://github.com/praw-dev/praw/archive/main.zip

For instructions on installing Python and pip see "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Python" Installation Guides _.

Quickstart

Assuming you already have a credentials for a script-type OAuth application you can instantiate an instance of PRAW like so:

.. code-block:: python

import praw

reddit = praw.Reddit(
    client_,
    client_secret="CLIENT_SECRET",
    password="PASSWORD",
    user_agent="USERAGENT",
    username="USERNAME",
)

With the reddit instance you can then interact with Reddit:

.. code-block:: python

# Create a submission to r/test
reddit.subreddit("test").submit("Test Submission", url="https://reddit.com")

# Comment on a known submission
submission = reddit.submission(url="https://www.reddit.com/comments/5e1az9")
submission.reply("Super rad!")

# Reply to the first comment of a weekly top thread of a moderated community
submission = next(reddit.subreddit("mod").top(time_filter="week"))
submission.comments[0].reply("An automated reply")

# Output score for the first 256 items on the frontpage
for submission in reddit.front.hot(limit=256):
    print(submission.score)

# Obtain the moderator listing for r/test
for moderator in reddit.subreddit("test").moderator():
    print(moderator)

Please see PRAW's documentation _ for more examples of what you can do with PRAW.

Discord Bots and Asynchronous Environments

If you plan on using PRAW in an asynchronous environment, (e.g., discord.py, asyncio) it is strongly recommended to use Async PRAW _. It is the official asynchronous version of PRAW and its usage is similar and has the same features as PRAW.

PRAW Discussion and Support

For those new to Python, or would otherwise consider themselves a Python beginner, please consider asking questions on the r/learnpython _ subreddit. There are wonderful people there who can help with general Python and simple PRAW related questions.

Otherwise, there are a few official places to ask questions about PRAW:

r/redditdev _ is the best place on Reddit to ask PRAW related questions. This subreddit is for all Reddit API related discussion so please tag submissions with [PRAW]. Please perform a search on the subreddit first to see if anyone has similar questions.

Real-time chat can be conducted via the PRAW Slack Organization _ (please create an issue if that invite link has expired).

Please do not directly message any of the contributors via Reddit, email, or Slack unless they have indicated otherwise. We strongly encourage everyone to help others with their questions.

Please file bugs and feature requests as issues on GitHub _ after first searching to ensure a similar issue was not already filed. If such an issue already exists please give it a thumbs up reaction. Comments to issues containing additional information are certainly welcome.

.. note::

This project is released with a `Contributor Code of Conduct
`_. By
participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.

Documentation

PRAW's documentation is located at https://praw.readthedocs.io/.

History

August 2010 _: Timothy Mellor created a github project called reddit_api.

March 2011 _: The Python package reddit was registered and uploaded to pypi.

December 2011 _: Bryce Boe took over as maintainer of the reddit package.

June 2012 _: Bryce renamed the project PRAW and the repository was relocated to the newly created praw-dev organization on GitHub.

February 2016 _: Bryce began work on PRAW4, a complete rewrite of PRAW.

License

PRAW's source (v4.0.0+) is provided under the Simplified BSD License _.

  • Copyright ©, 2016, Bryce Boe

Earlier versions of PRAW were released under GPLv3 _.

Frequently asked questions

Is praw free to use?

praw is open source under the BSD-2-Clause licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does praw do?

PRAW, an acronym for "Python Reddit API Wrapper", is a python package that allows for simple access to Reddit's API.

What is praw written in?

praw is primarily written in Python. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/praw-dev/praw, and it has 4,256 GitHub stars.