How to Scrape Twitter/X in 2026: Tweets, Profiles, Trends, and Follower Data

Ever since Elon Musk killed off free API access in early 2023, scraping Twitter (now X) has become one of the most frustrating challenges in web scraping. The platform that was once the easiest social network to pull data from is now one of the hardest. In this guide, I'll walk through every practical method available in 2026 — what works, what doesn't, what it costs, and where the traps are. The Current State of Twitter/X Data Access Let's be blunt: there is no free, reliable, officially-supported way to get Twitter data at scale in 2026. Here's what happened: February 2023 : Twitter shut down free API v1.1 access March 2023 : API v2 moved to paid tiers ($100/month minimum for basic access) Late 2023-2024 : Aggressive anti-scraping measures rolled out (rate limiting, bot detection, IP bans) 2025-2026 : Continued tightening — even logged-in browser sessions get throttled after moderate usage If anyone tells you "just use this free Python library and you're good," they're either outdate