Do you want to scrape publicly available data from the internet? This article is here to help. This article provides you with the best web scraping API to ease your scraping activities.
Website anti-scraping techniques are circumvented through web scraping APIs, which provide services to scrapers. In order to ensure that the page you requested gets downloaded for you, they utilize strategies such as IP rotation, Captcha solution, and other in-house approaches. The act of downloading and processing web pages is all that's necessary for web scraping while using them.
An API call to a web scraping API can be made in the same way that an API request can be sent. A scraper's price varies with the number of requests it is able to handle correctly. Only if your requests are successful will you be charged. As a result, they are always improving their system in order to make it more dependable, efficient, and speedy. According to form credits or requests, some are more expensive, while others are cheaper.
With the help of a web scraper, the target website is visited and data extracted. In most cases, they're looking for specific information, but users can also scan the entire website. Although just a few websites do so, web scrapers can be prevented from being used. Access to the private or organizational intranet is required for an API to access a firewall-protected site.
Scraping APIs are available on the internet, some of which are free. Free or not, I don't advocate utilizing these services unless there is an opportunity to try them out first. Using commercial web scraping APIs is the best way to go. Tests have proven that the web scraping APIs mentioned below are effective.
The Best Web Scraping APIs: Data Extraction at Scale & Without Getting Blocked
(Editor's choice) Smartproxy’s Web Scraping API
- Price: Begins at 50 USD
- Geotargeting Support: Global location coverage, city-level targeting
- Pool Size of Proxy: 40+ million
- Free Option (3 days free trial)
A functioning and easy-to-use scraping tool is a real deal breaker when you are up for gathering public data from various websites. If you don't want to deal with building your own scraper for that – use Smartproxy's Web Scraping API. You can save a stack of money by choosing this scraper because it's already paired with 40M+ elite residential and datacenter proxies.
With this API, you can gather data from any web since it a) has a city-targeting option, b) scrapes even the sites built on JavaScript c) delivers results every time by sending just one API request (yup, this scraping API runs at 100% success rate). This trouble-free scraping experience comes from as little as $50/month + VAT.
1. Apify (Apify Proxy) — Best Web Scraping API for Easy Creation of API for any site
- Price: Begins at 49 USD
- Geotargeting Support: YES
- Pool Size of Proxy: Thousands
- Free Option (30 days free proxy API requests trial)
The first web scraping API on this list is Apify. Apify has a very strong hold when it comes to web scraping. Personally, I rate this scraping API above others because of its amazing features and authenticity. Apify's goal is to make the process of developing an API for any website as simple and straightforward as possible.
Amazon, Google, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are just some of the websites that Apify Store provides ready-made scrapers for. In addition to developing web scraping APIs for websites that can be visited manually using a web browser, the Apify platform can also be utilized.
When a browser supports HTML, XLS, CVS or JSON formats, scraped data can be downloaded in these formats. Full-scale commercial solutions are also available from Apify, including Apify Proxy, which supports both residential and data center proxies.
2. Proxycrawl — Best Web Scraping API with Provision of Generic Scraper for Images, Emails, and Links Extraction
- Price: Begins at 29 USD (for 50k credits)
- Geotargeting Support: YES (depends on the purchased package)
- Pool Size of Proxy: Not disclosed
- Free Option: YES
The next on this list is Proxycrawl. If you need a web scraper to scrape email and image data, then I recommend Proxycrawl. Amazon search results, Google search results, and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter can all be scraped using APIs provided by Proxycrawl. There is a generic scraper you can use to extract links, emails, photos, and other stuff from a web page, in addition to the site-specific scrapers they make available to you.
Proxycrawl has a wide network of IP addresses that can route your searches via. Even if you don't wish to utilize their Scraper API, proxies are still accessible. It's easy to scrape with their APIs.
3. Scraper API — Best Web Scraping API for Anti-block Web Scraping Experience
- Price: Begins at 29 USD (for 250k API calls)
- Geotargeting Support: YES (depends on the purchased package)
- Pool Size of Proxy: 40 million
- Free Option (Free 1k API calls)
If there is anything I have come to love about Scraper API, it is the fact that it provides an effective and reliable anti-block service. It is best to use Scraper API if your online scraper continues to get prohibited. If you use Scraper API, you'll be able to avoid any form of censorship. Request headers and types, as well as Geolocation, are completely within your control.
The Scraper API uses a pool of more than 40 million IPs to rotate IPs. There are a number of APIs available for managing headless browsers, including Scraper API. In addition, it has the capacity to solve Captchas.
4. ScrapingBee — Best Web Scraping API for Authentic and Easy Scraping of Public Data
- Price: Begins at 29 USD (for 250k API credits)
- Geotargeting Support: YES
- Pool Size of Proxy: Undisclosed
- Free Option (free 1k API calls)
Did you know that web scraping can be made easy if you make use of the right API? This is where ScrapingBee comes in. If you don't want to bother with proxy management, ScrapingBee is a great online scraping API to employ. Headless browsers and proxy rotation are handled by ScrapingBee's API, on the other hand. Scraping Ajaxified or JavaScript-heavy websites can benefit from this tool.
A headless browser is the only way to view JavaScript. ScrapingBee can scrape data while running in headless mode in the most recent Chrome browser. For geotargeting, there are a lot of IPs available in the pool. It's a great value for the money.
5. OpenGraph — Best Web Scraping API for those on a Budget
- Price: 20 USD (for 25k requests)
- Geotargeting Support: YES (but has some restrictions)
- Pool Size of Proxy: Not disclosed
- Free Option (free 100 requests)
It is possible to scrape a web page and turn it into JSON using the OpenGraph API. Simply make a restful API call to get the data you need, and you'll get it back. Despite this, it still performs well and is less expensive than most of the other scraping APIs described above.
6. ProWebScraper — Best for Avoiding CAPTCHAS and Accessing Important Data through its Use of IP Rotation
- Price: Begins at 40 USD (for 5k pages)
- Geotargeting Support: YES (but has some limitations)
- Pool Size of Proxy: Not disclosed
- Free Options Available: YES
You can scrape data from any website using ProWebScraper's scraping API, and you won't have to worry about getting blacklisted or having to overcome Captchas. When using this API, you are responsible for downloading the entire web page and then parsing it yourself.
Using IP rotation and other in-house methods, ProWebScraper makes it possible for you to have access to the vital data you require for your business. A free trial is available so that you can see how well the service works before making a purchase.
7. Scrapingbot API — Affordable and Easy-to-use Web Scraping API
- Price: Begins at 39 USD (for 100k raw HTLM download)
- Geotargeting Support: YES
- Pool Size of Proxy: Not disclosed
- Free Options Available: YES
The Scrapingbot API cannot be as well-known as the others, but its users rave about how well it works and how simple it is to use. When it comes to getting over anti-scraping measures, it employs some of the most cutting-edge approaches. In terms of price, it's a good deal, as it has compatibility with a wide range of major JavaScript frameworks.
In addition, it provides headless browsers and handles proxies and their rotation to prevent their IP footprints from being discovered. For specific industries, such as retail and real estate, JSON parsing is supported, allowing you to download the whole HTML of a website.
8. Scrapestack — Best Web Scraping API for Handling CAPTCHAS and Proxies
- Price: Begins at 19.99 USD (for 200k requests)
- Geotargeting Support: YES (100+ locations)
- Pool Size of Proxy: 35 million
- Free Option (free 10k requests)
When it comes to handling your requests, Zenscrape has more than 35 million residential and data center IPs available. Fast, dependable, and stable due to a robust infrastructure.
Scraping APIs that don't need you to manage proxies are among those you can use to evade blockages and Captchas, and this one is one of them. Scrapestack is relied upon by more than 2000 businesses. Zenscrape can assist you in managing browsers for JavaScript, rendering, and emulating human behaviors, in addition to handling proxies and Captchas.
9. ScrapingANT — Best Web Scraping API Effective for Handling JavaScript Rending and Headless Browsers
- Price: Begins at 9 USD (for 5k requests)
- Geotargeting Support: YES
- Pool Size of Proxy: Not disclosed
- Free Options Available: YES
It is possible to utilize ScrapingANT as a web scraping API. You don't have to worry about dealing with headless browsers or JavaScript rendering when using it. It also handles proxy rotation and preprocessing of the output.
Additionally, ScrapingANT provides support for custom cookies, Captcha avoidance, and on-demand capabilities like browser modification. As long as your requests are successful, ScrapingANT will take care of all the heavy lifting for you.
10. Zenscrape — Fast and Reliable Web Scraping API
- Price: Begins at 8.99 USD (for 50k requests)
- Geotargeting Support: YES (but has some limitations)
- Pool Size of Proxy: 30 million
- Free Option (free 1k requests)
Easy to use, the Zenscrape API produces a JSON object containing the HTML markups of the page to be scraped. To put it simply, Zenscrape has lightning-fast reaction times. It eliminates the need to consider blockages or solve Captchas while pulling data from websites.
Zenscrape, like the other scraping APIs listed above, can render JavaScript and give you access to 100 percent of what a page's normal users view. They offer affordable plans, including one that is completely free. Even if it's free, the free plan doesn't offer enough features for you.
11. AutoExtract API — Best Specialized Web Scraping API
- Price: Begins at 60 USD (for 100k requests)
- Geotargeting Support: YES (but comes with some limitations)
- Pool Size of Proxy: Not disclosed
- Free Option (14 days free 10k requests)
Scrapinghub's AutoExtract API, often known as the Automatic Data Extraction API, is a web scraping tool. This is one of the best and most specialized web scraping APIs on the market right now, thanks to AutoExtract!
AutoExtract uses Artificial Intelligence to assist you in scraping the needed data from websites, unlike other programs that download the entire page and then leave you to parse it. Support for scraping news and article data, e-commerce product information, and more are included.
FAQs
Q. Why do I need to use Web Scraping APIs?
A web scraping API eliminates the need for proxy servers. This is due to the fact that it handles IP rotation and proxy control on your behalf. Additionally, web scraping APIs use HTTP requests to render JavaScript in headless browsers like Chrome, PhantomJS, etc. Additionally, they take care of Captcha prevention and resolution when they arise.
No need for a web scraping API when using proxies if a site doesn't have advanced anti-scraping measures. The expense of web scraping APIs can be avoided if you can manage all of the anti-scraping measures put out by websites.
Q. Do I need API for web scraping?
It's possible to get all the information you need using an API. A web scraper, on the other hand, can allow you to create your own API for any website, even if the API is unavailable.
Q. What does API mean?
Application Programming Interface is the abbreviation for API (API). The term “application” in API jargon refers to any piece of software that performs a certain task. Interfacing between two apps is a contract of service. Requests and answers are used to communicate between the two parties in this contract.
Conclusion
How tough is it to get over barriers and Captchas when trying to scrape material from a site with a comprehensive anti-spam system in place? Forget about circumventing the website's anti-scraping measures and concentrate on the data you need by using a scraping API service. The distinctions between the scraping APIs outlined above might help you decide which one is appropriate for your needs.
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