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Show HN: Self-host Reddit – 2.38B posts, works offline, yours forever

193 points

8 hours ago

| 15 comments

Reddit's API is effectively dead for archival. Third-party apps are gone. Reddit has threatened to cut off access to the Pushshift dataset multiple times. But 3.28TB of Reddit history exists as a torrent right now, and I built a tool to turn it into something you can browse on your own hardware.

The key point: This doesn't touch Reddit's servers. Ever. Download the Pushshift dataset, run my tool locally, get a fully browsable archive. Works on an air-gapped machine. Works on a Raspberry Pi serving your LAN. Works on a USB drive you hand to someone.

What it does: Takes compressed data dumps from Reddit (.zst), Voat (SQL), and Ruqqus (.7z) and generates static HTML. No JavaScript, no external requests, no tracking. Open index.html and browse. Want search? Run the optional Docker stack with PostgreSQL – still entirely on your machine.

API & AI Integration: Full REST API with 30+ endpoints – posts, comments, users, subreddits, full-text search, aggregations. Also ships with an MCP server (29 tools) so you can query your archive directly from AI tools.

Self-hosting options: - USB drive / local folder (just open the HTML files) - Home server on your LAN - Tor hidden service (2 commands, no port forwarding needed) - VPS with HTTPS - GitHub Pages for small archives

Why this matters: Once you have the data, you own it. No API keys, no rate limits, no ToS changes can take it away.

Scale: Tens of millions of posts per instance. PostgreSQL backend keeps memory constant regardless of dataset size. For the full 2.38B post dataset, run multiple instances by topic.

How I built it: Python, PostgreSQL, Jinja2 templates, Docker. Used Claude Code throughout as an experiment in AI-assisted development. Learned that the workflow is "trust but verify" – it accelerates the boring parts but you still own the architecture.

Live demo: https://online-archives.github.io/redd-archiver-example/

GitHub: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver (Public Domain)

Pushshift torrent: https://academictorrents.com/details/1614740ac8c94505e4ecb9d...

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Aurornis

5 hours ago

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Cool way to self-host archives.

What I'd really like is a plugin that automatically pulls from archives somewhere and replaces deleted comments and those bot-overwritten comments with the original context.

Reddit is becoming maddening to use because half the old links I click have comments overwritten with garbage out of protest for something. Ironically the original content is available in these archives (which are used for AI training) but now missing for actual users like me just trying to figure out how someone fixed their printer driver 2 years ago.

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anonymous908213

3 hours ago

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That would only really be ironic if the reason for people overwriting their comments was out of protest for LLM training, but the main reason that resulted in by far the biggest wave of deletions was Reddit locking down their API. If the result of their protest is that the site is less useful for you, the user, then in fact it served its purpose, as the entire point was an attempt to boycott Reddit, ie. get people to stop using it by removing the user contributions that give the site its only value in the first place.

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Aurornis

3 hours ago

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> If the result of their protest is that the site is less useful for you, the user, then in fact it served its purpose, as the entire point was an attempt to boycott Reddit, ie. get people to stop using it by removing the user contributions that give the site its only value in the first place.

In practice I just give them more page views because I have to view more threads before I find the answer.

Reddit's DAU numbers have only gone up since the protest.

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swed420

22 minutes ago

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> Reddit's DAU numbers have only gone up since the protest.

And so has the bot activity.

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anonymous908213

3 hours ago

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I did phrase it as "an attempt". In the end the protest probably wasn't as effective as protestors might have hoped, and it didn't get Reddit to change course on their enshittification decisions. I do think it was good that there was an attempt at pushback, at least, when most software users just accept enshittification as normal and continue tolerating whatever abuse their masters throw at them.

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twobitshifter

1 hour ago

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If reddit was a squeaky clean place, or if I could pick certain subs, maybe I would be interested, but I really wouldn't want ALL of reddit on my machine even temporarily.

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19-84

28 minutes ago

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the torrent has data for the top 40,000 subs on reddit. thanks to watchful1 splitting the data by subreddit, you can download only the subreddit you want from the torrent

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feconroses

40 minutes ago

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Very cool project! Quick question: is the underlying Pushshift dataset updated with new Reddit data on any regular cadence (daily/weekly/monthly), or is this essentially a fixed historical snapshot up to a certain date? Just want to understand if self-hosters would need to periodically re-download for fresh content or if it's archival-only.

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19-84

29 minutes ago

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the data from 2025-12 has been released already, it is usually released every month, it just needs to be split and reprocessed for 2025 by watchful1. i will probably eventually add support for importing data from the monthly arctic shift dumps so that archives can be updated monthly.

https://github.com/ArthurHeitmann/arctic_shift/releases

Arctic Shift https://academictorrents.com/browse.php?search=RaiderBDev

Watchful1 https://academictorrents.com/browse.php?search=Watchful1

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m463

1 hour ago

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I wonder if you could use this to "Seed" a new distributed social media thing and just take over from there.

sort of like forking a project.

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19-84

1 hour ago

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ive created tooling for an instance registry and team based leaderboard. the API has function to support this as well, so that we can collectively host archives in a decentralized and distributed manner

registry readme: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/docs/REGIST...

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NickNaraghi

5 hours ago

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Data is available via torrent in this section: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver?tab=readme-ov-file#-g...

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19-84

4 hours ago

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I have also published sub statistics and profiling for each platform. these can be used to help identify which subs to prioritize for archiving.

reddit: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/tools/subre...

voat: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/tools/subve...

ruqqus: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/tools/guild...

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elSidCampeador

5 hours ago

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I wonder if this can be hooked up with the now-dead Apollo app in some way, to get back a slice of time that is forever lost now?

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19-84

5 hours ago

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the API should allow for a lot of different integrations

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bkovacev

2 hours ago

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Is there any way to check if a subreddit that was made private (2-3 years ago) is in the data dump?

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19-84

1 hour ago

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I included a metadata dump of every subreddit found in the torrent. it includes a status field which will show of a subreddit is private along with a much more details

data catalog readme: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/tools/READM...

reddit data: https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/tools/subre...

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diggings

2 hours ago

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This is a neat project, nice work.

You've probably come across this already but there are alternative archives to PushShift that may have differing sets of posts and comments (perhaps depending on removal request coverage?)

One is Arctic Shift: https://github.com/ArthurHeitmann/arctic_shift/releases

Another is PullPush: https://pullpush.io/

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alcroito

3 hours ago

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I tried spinning up the local approach with docker compose, but it fails.

There's no `.env.example` file to copy from. And even if the env vars are set manually, there are issues with the mentioned volumes not existing locally.

Seems like this needs more polish.

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19-84

3 hours ago

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thank you for your comment, some example dot files were not copied in my original repo, they have now been added.

https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/commit/0bb103952195ae...

the docs have been updated with mkdir steps

https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/commit/c3754ea3a0238f...

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alcroito

2 hours ago

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Cheers. I checked the updated steps.

This is still missing creating the `output/.postgres-data` dir, without which docker compose refuses to start.

After creating that manually, going to http://localhost/ shows a 403 Forbidden page, which makes you believe that something might have gone wrong.

This is before running `reddarchiver-builder python reddarc.py` to generate the necessary DB from the input data.

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19-84

1 hour ago

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I've updated the workflow and added a placeholder page that will serve before archives are created. thanks again! https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/commit/0dfd505ca81cb2...

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kylehotchkiss

4 hours ago

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_Hacker News collectively grabs the dataset to train their models on how to become effective reddit trolls_

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layer8

3 hours ago

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Don’t we have enough of those already? ;)

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19-84

4 hours ago

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the API and MCP server is very powerful ;)

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drob518

1 hour ago

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This is a great way to participate in arguments you missed three years ago.

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justsomehnguy

1 hour ago

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Appreciated.

EDIT: Is there any cheap way to search? I have MS TechNet archive which is useless without search, so I realky want to know a way to have a cheap local search w/o grepping everyting.

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19-84

25 minutes ago

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redd-archiver uses postgres full text search. for static search you could use lunr.js

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dvngnt_

4 hours ago

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I want to do the same thing for tiktok. I have 5k videos starting from the pandemic downloaded. want to find a way to use AI to tag and categorize the videos to scroll locally.

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syngrog66

4 hours ago

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Did you pay all the people who created its content?

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nullandvoid

2 hours ago

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Did anyone ever comment on reddit with an expectation of pay?

It's an open forum - similar to here, whatever I post I it's in the public forum and therefore I expect it to be used / remixed however anyone wants.

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nozzlegear

2 hours ago

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> Did anyone ever comment on reddit with an expectation of pay?

Maybe Gallowboob

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Sohcahtoa82

1 hour ago

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That's a name I haven't seen in a LONG time.

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devilsdata

3 hours ago

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I have no problem with this being downloaded for personal use, in fact that's a good thing. But of course we both know it'll be used to train AI.

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antisthenes

1 hour ago

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Reddit didn't pay me for posting either. Not that I posted in the last decade.

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Jordan-117

4 hours ago

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>Voat

Gross. Why would anyone want to have an archive of Reddit For Neonazis?

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19-84

4 hours ago

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thank you for your comment, I will support any platform that has complete dataset available. I will take submissions for any complete datasets through github issues. https://github.com/19-84/redd-archiver/blob/main/.github/ISS...

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apstls

2 hours ago

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There are certainly things to be learned from analysis of the dataset. Keep your friends close but your enemies as JSON, or something...

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devilsdata

3 hours ago

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Might be good for researchers to be able to perform studies on.

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metaPushkin

2 hours ago

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It seems you have no understanding of the term neo-fascism, and yes, it's not what your propaganda talks about.

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nozzlegear

2 hours ago

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Can you explain for the class? Don't just say that and leave us wondering.

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diggyhole

3 hours ago

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Wat?

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Jordan-117

3 hours ago

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It sold itself as a healthier alternative to Reddit, but by the end of its run virtually every post sitewide was some flavor of virulently racist, misogynistic, anti-semitic, fringe conspiratorial, etc.