Home / Blog / Web Scraping / Best Web Scraper API Services of 2024
In this article, you will explore the best web scraper APIs of the year, highlighting their features, benefits, and pricing models.
Companies recognize the value of their data and want to protect it at all costs. Here is why many sites now adopt anti-scraping systems, making it increasingly difficult to retrieve that information. Maintaining a dedicated infrastructure and logic to overcome these measures is complex and resource-intensive. Plus, it requires constant updates to adapt to ever-evolving protection mechanisms. This is where a dedicated web scraper API service comes into play!
Let’s dive in!
A web scraper API is a dedicated service designed to collect data from any site or a collection of selected domains. It provides endpoints that developers can connect to for programmatic and simplified data extraction. These APIs abstract the complexities involved in web scraping, making it easier to fetch information from web pages.
Some key features offered by web scraper APIs include:
Listed below are the main benefits of adopting a web scraper API in your data extraction project:
These are the key elements to consider when selecting the best web scraper APIs:Main features: Core capabilities offered by the scraping service.Locations: Countries where you can geo-locate your requests.IPs: The pool of proxy IPs available to the scraper API.Specialized APIs: Additional APIs for specific use cases and targeted sites.Free trial: Availability of a trial period to test the service before committing to a paid plan.Pricing: The plans and pricing options available.Reviews: User ratings on platforms like Trustpilot, Capterra, and G2.
Explore the list of the best web scraper API services, selected and ranked using the criteria identified earlier.
Bright Data is a leading proxy provider but also comes with several interesting web scraping services. In detail, Web Scraper API is a comprehensive solution for programmatic data scraping from numerous domains. Supported sites include LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Crunchbase, Yelp, Zillow, Walmart, Instagram, eBay, Amazon, Indeed, Facebook, TikTok, and others.
Bright Data’s Web Scraper API simplifies web scraping by managing complexities such as IP blocks, CAPTCHA challenges, and dynamic content rendering. The API delivers structured data in formats like JSON, NDJSON, or CSV, through webhook or API delivery. To make scraping anonymous, it features automatic IP and user-agent rotation.
Bright Data offers scalability and stability, with a robust infrastructure that supports high-volume data extraction and a 99.99% uptime guarantee. The platform provides global coverage with over 72 million real user IPs and complies with major data protection regulations. Key use cases for this scraping API include business, e-commerce, social media, real estate, and financial data extraction.
Pricing is based on a pay-as-you-go plan that varies depending on the number of records to fetch and the target domain.
Main Features:
Locations: 195+ countries
IPs: 72+ millions IPs
Specialized APIs: SERP API, Business scraper API, E-commerce scraper API, Real-Estate scraper API, Social Media scraper API, Financial scraper API, and others
Free Trial: Yes, 20 API calls for free
Pricing: Starts from $0.001/record, with pricing that changes based on the number of records and domain type
Reviews:Trustpilot: 4.5/5 (731 reviews)Capterra: 4.8/5 (64 reviews)G2: 4.6/5 (190 reviews)
Just like Bright Data, the popular proxy provider Oxylabs offers a Web Scraper API product. This solution is specifically designed to simplify data extraction from any website, addressing challenges like anti-bot systems. It ensures accurate and high-quality data retrieval across various business use cases, including real estate, travel, and e-commerce.
The API supports advanced features such as custom headers, JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA bypass, and AI-driven proxy management. Also, you can specify geo-location proxies for localized data, define automated recurring scraping jobs, and employ custom parsers for structured data collection.
After sending a single API request, results can be retrieved directly or stored in cloud storage. Oxylabs provides a free trial with 5,000 results to test its capabilities but there is no pay-as-you-go plan. Plus, while Oxylabs boasts a proxy pool of over 100 million IPs, the number of IPs allocated specifically to this API is undisclosed.
Locations: 195 countries
IPs: Undisclosed
Specialized APIs: Dedicated APIs for real estate, travel, companies, entertainment, automotive, and other industries
Free Trial: Yes, 7-day free trial with 5,000 requests
Pricing:
Reviews:
As the name suggests, ScraperAPI offers a dedicated Scraping API solution. This is an easy REST API for straightforward web data extraction. It enables you to collect data from millions of web sources with minimal setup.
Like Oxylabs, ScraperAPI has some limitations on concurrent requests. On the other hand, it excels with its extensive documentation and official SDKs. That makes integration with various programming languages seamless.
The service enhances data collection by managing proxies, handling CAPTCHAs, and overcoming geo-restrictions. It can be integrated into existing systems or used via its async scraper option to handle high-volume requests.
Pricing starts at $49 per month, with a free 7-day trial available. Despite its strong features and positive user feedback, it supports only 50 countries, and full geo-targeting options are limited to the Business plan.
Locations: 50+ countries
IPs: 40+ millions of IPs
Specialized APIs: Yes, for e-commerce, SEO, travel, and finance industries
Free Trial: Yes, 7-day free trial
ScrapingBee is a web scraping API service to fetch data from the Internet. It handles headless browsers and rotates proxies, helping you focus on what matters most. The API can be integrated into existing systems or used via a no-code option for easy setup.
It supports JavaScript rendering to scrape dynamic content from single-page applications built with libraries like React. With its extensive proxy pool, ScrapingBee can bypass rate limits and geo-restrictions, though the exact number of available IPs is unspecified.
Compared to other web scraper APIs, requests generally require 20+ credits. Additionally, the company currently lacks reviews on Trustpilot and G2.
Locations: 200+
Specialized APIs: Google search API
Free Trial: Yes, 1,000 free API calls
Smartproxy—primarily known for its proxy services—also provides a robust solution for extracting large volumes of data. This is called Web Scraping API, an endpoint that supports both synchronous and asynchronous requests and enables real-time and on-demand data retrieval.
It guarantees flexible output options and allows for task scheduling with email notifications upon completion. The API is equipped with advanced anti-bot protection, utilizing browser fingerprinting to ensure seamless data collection.
While Smartproxy leverages its vast proxy network to support Web Scraping API, the exact number of IPs dedicated to this product is unknown.
Smartproxy offers a 14-day money-back option, consistent with its other products. Dedicated web scraper APIs for specific use cases are also available.
Locations: 105 countries
Specialized APIs: SERP Scraping API, Social Media Scraping API, E-commerce Scraping API
Free Trial: Yes, 7-day free trial with 1,000 requests
Infatica is a proxy provider that comes with a Web Scraper API tool for retrieving data from any web page. This supports synchronous and asynchronous requests, enabling real-time or scheduled data retrieval with output options in CSV, XLSX, and JSON formats. The API handles JavaScript rendering via a headless browser and provides proxy rotation.
The proxy infrastructure backing the service includes millions of residential proxies across over 100 global locations. The scraping API also includes advanced features like CAPTCHA solving. The entry price is lower than other web scraper APIs, but there is no pay-as-you-go plan.
Locations: 100+ global locations
IPs: Millions of IPs
Specialized APIs: SERP API
Nimble provides a Web API that acts as a web scraping API for comprehensive data collection from any public web source. The API leverages the Nimble AI Browser to ensure smooth unblocking and accurate data retrieval.
The API supports batch processing, enabling the scraping of up to 1,000 URLs in a single request. It also offers customizable geo-location and integrates with cloud storage services for seamless data delivery.
Nimble’s Web API serves various industries, including e-commerce, social media, travel, and finance. Pricing is flexible, with options ranging from pay-as-you-go to tiered monthly plans to suit different needs and budgets. Still, there are only a few user reviews available online. Plus, the number of global IPs dedicated to the API has not been disclosed.
Locations: 79 countries
Specialized APIs: SERP API, E-commerce API, Maps API
Free Trial: Yes
The Zyte API is a powerful tool to streamline web scraping, relying on handling an optimal set of proxies. It ensures a healthy crawl without overloading target sites with requests by implementing advanced techniques.
Significant features of this web scraping API include a scriptable headless browser and a custom IDE for coding and debugging. It also supports capturing screenshots and managing sessions and cookies.
Compared to other leading web scraper APIs, Zyte offers extremely flexible pricing based on extraction complexity. While Zyte focuses on the popular industry of web scraping, there are not many user reviews online, and not all are positive. This could indicate either poor customer service or a limited customer base. In addition, there are no specialized scraping APIs available and the trial is only for enterprises.
Locations: 200+ countries
IPs: Hundreds of thousands of IPs
Specialized APIs: No
Free Trial: Yes, $100 free credit available for enterprises
Pricing:Pay-as-you-go plan from $0.20 to $24 per request based on extraction complexity, or monthly subscription
Shifter has a Web Scraping API service for large-scale data retrieval. This features advanced capabilities such as automatic browser fingerprinting to navigate around anti-scraping measures and avoid IP blocks.
The API integrates seamlessly with Shifter’s global proxy infrastructure. That includes datacenter, mobile, and residential proxies and provides robust geo-targeting options.
Shifter’s Web Scraping API delivers reliable data collection across various sectors like travel, finance, e-commerce, and real estate. It promises a smooth user experience with instant activation, a money-back guarantee, and 24/7 support. However, it is worth noting that the few reviews available are not positive.
Free Trial: Yes, available via a request to the support team
Take a look at the best web scraper API services in the summary table below:
In this article, you learned what a web scraper API is and how useful it can be for programmatically scraping data from the Web. Specifically, you explored the key aspects to consider when evaluating these scraping APIs and applied them to select a list of the best web scraper APIs on the market.
9 min read
Jonathan Schmidt
Wyatt Mercer
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