What the page shows
The stats page for a community lists its member count, the number of posts and comments it received this week, and its top threads of the week with their scores and reply counts. It also shows the newest posts, so you can see what the community is talking about right now, and a set of the words it uses most this week, which is a quick read on its topics and its tone.
The numbers come from Redlisten's index of public posts and comments, collected as they are posted. Activity counts are true counts of what was posted, not an estimate from a sample of the front page, so a community that gets hundreds of comments an hour shows it.
Who uses it
Marketers size a community before spending time in it: a large member count with little weekly activity is a quiet room. Moderators compare their community with neighbours and spot the topics that draw replies. Founders and researchers find where a problem is discussed and read the top threads to hear how people describe it. Developers check that a community is active enough before building a bot or feed around it.
Reading the numbers
Members are a ceiling, not an audience. Weekly posts and comments say how many people actually turn up, and the ratio of comments to posts says whether threads become conversations. Top threads by score show what the community rewards; the newest posts show what it is asked. Look at both before drawing a conclusion. A community that is mostly link posts with few comments behaves very differently from one where every question gets twenty replies.
Add ?format=json to any community page for the same data as JSON.
Before you post in a community
Start with its top threads of the week. They show the formats it rewards, from long write ups to quick questions, and the tone that gets upvoted. Check the newest posts for how many go unanswered; a community where new posts sit at zero replies will not respond to yours either. And read its rules on the community page itself. Many communities ban self promotion outright or limit it to a weekly thread, and the stats here cannot tell you that.
Comparing two communities is often more useful than reading one. Open both and compare weekly comments rather than members. A smaller community with more comments a week is usually the better place to learn from and to be heard in.
Signs of a healthy community
Replies outnumber posts several times over. Five or more comments per post usually means people come to talk, not just to drop links. The top threads are recent and varied. If the same kind of post wins every week, the community has a narrow taste. New posts get answered. Scan the newest list; questions with replies within the hour point to an active core of members. The common words match the name. If a community called r/homelab mostly talks about one product, it may be closer to a fan group than a general forum. None of these needs an account or a key, and together they say more than a member count ever will.
Going further
With a key, /r/{sub}/new.json, /r/{sub}/comments.json and /r/{sub}/top.json return the full listings, /v1/trends/communities ranks the communities that mention a keyword, and a keyword stream limited to a set of communities delivers each new post or comment to Slack, Discord or a webhook. Feed readers can follow a community with /r/{sub}/new.rss. A free key has 250 requests a month; Pro is $29. See the docs.
Redlisten is not affiliated with Reddit, Inc.