Do you want to embark on social research on Twitter, but you don’t know which Twitter scraper to use? This article is here to help. This article provides you with the best Twitter scraper to ease your social research.
There aren’t many websites that can connect to the term “big data,” but Twitter does since it hosts over 500 million tweets every day, the vast majority of which are text-based, followed by photos and, finally, videos. Text-based tweets are crucial to social research since they can be utilized for sentiment analysis, text categorization, and some predictive analysis. Businesses and researchers interested in Twitter data aren’t simply interested in tweets; they also care about user-profiles and follower counts. Extraction of data from Twitter via Twitter APIs is commonly referred to as “Twitter data scraping” by some. The methods used by the two organizations to gather data are diametrically opposed. It is allowed to use Twitter’s API to retrieve data from Twitter; however, Twitter scraping includes obtaining the whole HTML of a Twitter page and then extracting only the necessary information from it. Twitter does not allow scraping, and as a result, you risk a lawsuit from their legal team if you are found.
It is generally agreed that scraping publicly available data without authorization from the site you are scraping from, even in court, is lawful. Unfortunately, it’s possible that using the information in this way might be considered unlawful, depending on your intended use. Even though Twitter does not allow scraping, it appears to have one of the worst anti-scraping measures in place to detect scraping. However, you still need to be prepared and plan since you will still encounter IP bans and Captchas. You don’t need to know how to code to do this; a visual scraping tool would suffice. It’s also possible to save money and build bespoke solutions using coding expertise.
Today, researchers don’t require coding skills to use software that scrapes data from websites automatically. If you don’t know how to code, you can still scrape due to pre-built web scrapers. Please go on to learn about the best Twitter scrapers available.
9 Best Twitter Scraping Tools in 2024
1. Bright Data (BrightData’s Twitter Collector) — Number One Best Twitter Scraper for Easy Scraping of Twitter Data
- Price: Begins at 500 USD (for 151k page loads)
- Data Format: Excel
- Platform Supported: Web-Based
Bright Data’s Data Collector is an excellent web-based application for scraping Twitter. Twitter and social media profiles can be easily scraped with this tool. Scrape tweets using keywords, hashtags, and even URLs with this program.
Only the URL of the Twitter accounts that you’d want to scrape is required to get them. You can then download them. When you use Data Collector, you’ll appreciate that it’s all done for you. Custom collectors are available if they don’t already have one for your data.
2. Apify (Apify Twitter Profile Scraper) — Best Twitter Scraper for Specialized Scraping of Twitter Data
- Price: Begins at 49 USD monthly (49 USD for 100 Actor Compute Units)
- Data Format: JSON
- OS Supported: Cloud-Based (Accessible through API)
In order to scrape data from certain accounts, the Apify Twitter Profile Scraper has been designed to be very specialized. Users’ profiles, tweets, and retweets, as well as responses, conversations, and favorites, are all data that can be scraped and used in other ways.
You can use the Apify Hashtag Scraper if you’re interested in scraping tweets related to certain hashtags, as it’s designed to do just that. Because your Apify membership covers the use of all actors, utilizing more than one actor has no effect on how much you’ll be charged.
3. ScraperAPI — Best Twitter Scraping with Proxy to Extract Important Data from Twitter
- Price: Begins at 49 USD monthly for 100,000 API Credits
- Data Format: HTML, JSON
- Free option (7 days free trial for 5000 requests)
A Twitter scraper like ScraperAPI has made it easier than ever to extract data from Twitter. With their scraper API tools, they claim it’s easier than ever to utilize a proxy to extract all the essential information from Twitter in a form that can be read and digested.
It’s also possible for them to provide a trial period so that you can get to know their features and test them out before deciding to commit to a long-term agreement. Just to use this function, you don’t need to provide your credit card information. One of the best features of this Twitter scraper is that it automatically rotates your proxies.
4. ScrapingBee — Best Twitter Scraper with Rotating Proxies for Scraping Twitter Data Anonymously
- Price: Begins at 29 USD monthly for 4000 searches
- Data Format: HTML
- Free option (1000 free searches)
To learn more about how ScrapingBee can assist you as a Twitter scraper, you can visit their website, where you’ll find a wealth of knowledge on anything from Twitter scraping to basic web scraping.
It’s likely that Twitter will allow you to capture screenshots of particular Twitter sites if you’re seeking to extract data.
With their rotating proxies and the ability to be set up with all of their web-scraping tools without having to know any code, you’re in good hands here. Free trials are available, so you can see if you like them before committing any money.
5. Octoparse — Best for Extracting Publicly Available Data from Twitter
- Price: Begins at 75 USD monthly
- Free Option (14 days free trial)
- Data Format: SQLServer, MySQL, JSON, Excel, CSV
- Platform Supported: Desktop, Cloud
Even while Octoparse is not a specialist Twitter scraper, it has been shown to be one of the finest on the market. This is due to the fact that many of the sites it supports, including Twitter, already have pre-made designs. Octoparse has the ability to extract any publicly available data from the Twitter site. You don’t have to be concerned about blockages when using this bot.
It is also quite quick, and you can access the scraped data in a variety of ways. Octoparse can be used on a computer or on the cloud, depending on your preference. It has a simple point-and-click interface for scheduling extraction activities.
6. ScrapeStorm — Best for Undetected Scraping of Twitter Data
- Price:99 USD monthly
- Data Format: Google Sheets, MySQL, JSON, Excel, CSV, TXT
- Platform Supported: Cloud, Desktop
Using ScrapeStorm, anybody can scrape Twitter accounts, tweets, and other publicly available material using this customizable but robust web scraper. It is widely considered to be one of the top web scrapers on the market by researchers.
Using the correct parameters, ScrapeStorm can scrape undetected and unhindered without running afoul of anything. It’s also built to handle large amounts of data and will function effectively no matter how much you’re scraping.
In comparison to some of the most recent bots on the market, ScrapeStorm, produced by an ex-Google crawler team, is more sophisticated. This is due to the fact that it utilizes an API-powered data identification system to do its automated data identification.
In addition to Excel, CSV, TXT, MySQL, and JSON, ScrapeStorm now gives data in TXT and CSV formats. Its monthly rates start at 49.99 USD monthly, making it affordable. Before signing up for their services, users can also take advantage of free trials, albeit there are certain restrictions.
7. Webscraper.io (Webscraper.io Extension) — Best Twitter Scraper for Smooth and Unhindered Twitter Scraping
- Price: Free (Free Browser Extension)
- Data Format: CSV
- Platform Supported: Chrome Extension
The most widely used Chrome web scraping add-on is Webscraper.io. Because it’s built for today’s web, you can use it to scrape Twitter. You can use Webscraper.io to scrape tweets and their accompanying comments and extract user personal details, including accounts he follows and those he follows, as well as the accounts he follows. Webscraper.io can grab any freely available Twitter data for you without a hitch. It’s a browser-based program that’s free and open-source. If you don’t want to pay any money, you should utilize Webscraper.io.
8. Helium Scraper — Best Twitter Scraper with Point-and-Click Interface for Easy Twitter Scraping Experience
- Price: 99 USD (one-user license)
- Free option (10 days free trial)
- Data Format: SQLite, JSON, XML, Excel, CSV
- Platform Supported: Desktop
Helium Scraper shows that extracting web pages need not be complicated. Helium Scraper has an easy-to-use point-and-click interface for teaching it what data to scrape. Scraping Twitter data, including tweets, their related metadata, and responses as well as user personal details, is supported by Helium Scraper.
Because of its high speed, Helium Scraper can help you save a lot of time. One of the greatest Twitter scrapers is this web scraper. Scraping jobs can be scheduled, and related components can be detected.
9. Phantombuster — Best for Fast and Easy Twitter Scraping
- Price: Begins at 59 USD monthly for Starter Plan (20 hours monthly and 5 Phantom slots)
- Data Format: JSON, CSV
- Free Option (14 days free trial with 10 minutes daily)
- Platform Supported: Desktop, Cloud
Phantombuster is a must-see if you want to scrape Twitter accounts quickly and easily. In addition to data extraction and code-free automation, they provide a wide range of features that don’t require any coding knowledge to operate.
In addition to scraping data from the social media site, these tools can also enable you to send automated messages and get contact information. To get to know them, you can either view their video or test them out for free, so you’ll be able to discover all you need to understand about them before making a final decision.
There is a two-week trial available, and all you have to do to sign up is provide an email address. Your credit card information will not be shared as a result.
Why Firms Scrape Twitter Data
Some firms and academics exclusively use the Twitter API to extract data. These APIs, unfortunately, limit the amount of historical data that can be retrieved and the number of requests that can be sent in a single window.
Researchers can’t conduct extensive studies because the information they need is either insufficient or not easily available because of these constraints. As a result, these APIs are of little use to scientists. If Twitter’s APIs don’t meet your research needs, scrapers are your best bet for getting the data you need.
In order to gather data from Twitter, web bots are utilized. Twitter Scrapers, then, are essentially Web bots that make it easier to scrape Twitter in an effective manner. Newbie scrapers sometimes mistake accessing Twitter APIs for getting data with scraping tweets; however, the two are not the same. Using these two methods, Twitter data can be obtained in two distinct ways. The official method of extracting data from Twitter is to use APIs.
It’s also critical that you just take in the knowledge you need to do your job. As a result, Twitter scraping requires using Web bots to extract all of the HTML from a Twitter page and then extracting the data you want. Scrapers risk being sued by Twitter’s legal team if they are discovered on the platform, which does not tolerate scraping. As a general rule, scraping public material from a website without permission is legal in court and widely recognized. Scraping data may be illegal in some jurisdictions.
Twitter’s anti-scraping methods are ineffectual, despite the fact that the company is plainly opposed to data scraping. Scraping Twitter requires no coding skills, but you must still be able to get over Captchas and IP address restrictions if you want to be successful in your endeavors.’ When it comes to Twitter Scraping, if you utilize a visual tool, you’ll be able to acquire the information you need.
How to Use BeautifulSoup, Requests, and Python to Scrape Data from Twitter
Your Twitter scraper can be customized by a programmer to include the features you want. As long as the computer language is Turing complete, you can utilize Twitter scrapers in any language. There are a number of excellent libraries in Python that can save you time and make the development process more efficient. Since Python is so easy to learn, it is the most common programming language for web scrapers.
I can guarantee that your attempts will be met with some resistance, even if I have noted that Twitter is not very strict about its prohibition on the use of scrapers on its website. As an illustration, consider Twitter, which still keeps track of your IP address and stops you if your queries go above a particular amount. Unlike other websites that require residential or mobile proxies in order to access their service, Twitter uses datacenter proxies instead of these other types. Ajax features can be difficult to utilize, but you can still extract data from the previous version that isn’t Ajaxified.
Twitter data extraction is a simple process after the first page has been created; all you need to do is look for tags that contain the data you’re looking for and also learn how to retrieve more information after the first page has completed loading. You can then use Beautifulsoup and Requests to parse out the URLs you want to get from Twitter. You should always use a well-known browser in the User-Agent header of your bot. Take care to configure proxies, too.
FAQs
Q. Is it legal to scrape Twitter?
Although Twitter prohibits non-permitted web scraping, breaching these rules is a civil issue; therefore, it’s not unlawful to scrape the service without the company’s permission. Twitter data is scraped on a regular basis, but issues are rarely brought to the attention of the public.
Conclusion
It’s impossible to run out of web scrapers if Twitter is your data source of choice. Those of you who are programmers can build your own Twitter scraper. There are a number of free Twitter scrapers available if you don’t want the hassle of learning how to program your own.
