Scrape Google Maps and query top-rated places with DuckDB

Trigger an Apify Google Maps scraper synchronously and pipe the resulting JSON dataset directly into DuckDB to find top-rated locations using SQL.

$ curl -s -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apify~google-maps-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"searchStringsArray":["specialty coffee in Brooklyn"],"maxCrawledPlacesPerSearch":20}' | duckdb -c "SELECT title, totalScore, reviewsCount, address FROM read_json_auto('/dev/stdin') WHERE totalScore >= 4.5 ORDER BY reviewsCount DESC LIMIT 3;"

1. [01] curlcurl -s -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/apify~google-maps-scraper/run-syn…
   Synchronously runs the Apify Google Maps Scraper actor and returns the dataset items as JSON.
2. [02] apify-d '{"searchStringsArray":["specialty coffee in Brooklyn"],"maxCrawledPlacesPerS…
   Passes the scraping configuration, limiting results to 20 to keep the synchronous request fast.
3. [03] duckdb| duckdb -c "SELECT title, totalScore, reviewsCount, address ..."
   Pipes the JSON array directly into DuckDB, executing a SQL query to filter and sort the places.
4. [04] duckdbFROM read_json_auto('/dev/stdin')
   Instructs DuckDB to automatically infer the schema from the piped JSON stream.

┌─────────────────┬────────────┬──────────────┬───────────────────────────────────┐
│      title      │ totalScore │ reviewsCount │              address              │
├─────────────────┼────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────────────────────────┤
│ Devoción        │        4.6 │         2104 │ 69 Grand St, Brooklyn, NY 11249   │
│ Sey Coffee      │        4.7 │         1432 │ 18 Grattan St, Brooklyn, NY 11206 │
│ Partners Coffee │        4.5 │         1120 │ 125 N 6th St, Brooklyn, NY 11249  │
└─────────────────┴────────────┴──────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┘

• Synchronous Apify runs (run-sync-get-dataset-items) will time out if the scrape takes longer than 5 minutes. For larger scrapes, use asynchronous webhooks.
• Requires an active Apify account and API token. Google Maps scraping consumes Apify compute units (CUs) and proxy usage, which incurs costs.