An In-Depth Review of Octoparse

Octoparse is a web scraping tool that allows users to extract data from websites without requiring programming skills. It promises to simplify the process of data extraction through a visual workflow builder and user-friendly interface, which has made it an attractive option for beginners, while its advanced features, like cloud-based scraping and automation, add value for more seasoned users.

However, Octoparse isn’t the only option for data extraction. So, this review will consider how Octoparse holds up against other tools in the market; this will be done by analyzing its features, pricing, and performance in detail.

General Overview

Founded in 2016, Octoparse is a no-code web scraping platform designed to simplify data extraction for users across industries. Over the years, the platform has been regularly updated and enhanced, with new features guided by user feedback gathered through surveys and forums.

Thanks to its no-code, workflow-based design, Octoparse is an ideal solution for beginners in web scraping. Unlike many competitors that require coding at various stages, Octoparse enables users to perform all tasks through its intuitive graphical user interface (GUI).

However, for more advanced users who need greater flexibility-such as custom scripting or API-level control-this simplicity can become a limitation.

For those seeking both ease of use and advanced capabilities, solutions like the Bright Data’s Web Scraper API offer the best of both worlds. Bright Data offers dedicated scraper APIs for over 100 websites, which users can plug and play to extract data without writing any additional code, while also providing customization options for specific use cases. These APIs seamlessly integrate into business workflows, delivering accurate, reliable data at scale. For large-scale, highly targeted, or specialized scraping needs,

Bright Data’s Web Scraper API can serve as a premium alternative to platforms like Octoparse.
That said, Octoparse remains a strong choice for users looking to simplify web scraping without sacrificing core functionality. The platform supports installation on both Windows and macOS, enabling users to extract data from a wide range of websites, including dynamic social media platforms and e-commerce sites like Amazon and eBay.

To further streamline workflows, Octoparse offers pre-built templates for popular websites, allowing users to execute scraping tasks with minimal effort.

The platform also excels in providing comprehensive user support. Tutorials, FAQs, and a blog are available in multiple languages, including English, Japanese, and Spanish, ensuring accessibility for a global audience.

What are the Different Products Offered?

Enterprise Solutions

Octoparse offers an Enterprise Plan tailored for businesses with complex and large-scale web scraping requirements. This plan provides a scalable solution designed to meet diverse data extraction needs.
Key Features of Octoparse’s Enterprise Plan:

• High-Priority Support: Enterprise users receive top-priority assistance through various communication channels, ensuring timely and efficient resolution of any issues or inquiries.
• Dedicated Success Manager: Each enterprise client is assigned a dedicated success manager who collaborates closely to understand specific requirements and offers personalized solutions aligned with business objectives.
• Team Collaboration: The plan facilitates seamless team cooperation by allowing the addition of multiple users to a single account. This feature enables resource sharing and collaborative project work within a secure environment.
• Octoparse Online Web Console: Enterprise users gain full access to an online web console, enhancing data extraction and management capabilities.
• Scalable Resources: As business data needs grow, the Enterprise Plan offers scalable resources to accommodate increasing data extraction and management demands, ensuring the platform evolves alongside the enterprise.

The Enterprise Plan is customizable, with options to add more cloud processors or agent seats upon request, providing flexibility to match specific organizational needs.

Data Service

Octoparse’s Data Service offers a fully managed web scraping solution tailored for businesses seeking efficient and reliable data extraction without the complexities of developing and maintaining their own scraping infrastructure. This service is particularly beneficial for organizations that require large-scale data collection across various industries.

The Data Service is designed to be quick and hassle-free, with Octoparse’s team handling all aspects of the data extraction process. This includes setting up crawlers, managing data collection, and ensuring the delivery of accurate and high-quality data. Clients can expect to receive ready-to-use data in formats such as Excel or CSV or have it integrated directly into their databases via REST API, eliminating concerns over data gaps or messy datasets.

Flexibility and scalability are key advantages of Octoparse’s Data Service. It accommodates projects of varying sizes, from one-time data extractions to recurring collections, handling volumes ranging from thousands to millions of records daily. This scalability ensures that as a business’s data needs grow, the service can adapt accordingly.

The service process is straightforward: clients provide the target websites and specify the required data fields. An assigned Octoparse Account Manager collaborates closely with the client to ensure all project specifications are met. The Octoparse team then manages the entire process, from building and maintaining the project to delivering the data in the desired format.

Octoparse emphasizes reliability and quality assurance, offering service-level agreements (SLAs) that guarantee on-time delivery and data accuracy. With a robust infrastructure comprising over 5,000 cloud servers worldwide and advanced anti-blocking technologies, Octoparse ensures consistent and dependable data collection.

Octoparse AI

Octoparse AI is a no-code platform designed to streamline workflow automation by enabling users to create custom AI-driven processes without the need for programming expertise. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface allows for the effortless construction of automation workflows, making it accessible to users across various technical backgrounds.

The platform offers a library of ready-to-use automation applications catering to a wide range of business needs.

One of the standout features of Octoparse AI is its integration with leading AI models from providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. This integration empowers users to enhance their workflows with advanced AI capabilities, facilitating tasks like data extraction, processing, and analysis. Additionally, the platform supports seamless data integration across various tools, promoting efficient data handling and utilization.

Collaboration is a key focus of Octoparse AI, offering centralized management of automation workflows that can be shared across teams and departments. This feature enhances collaborative efforts, ensuring consistency and efficiency in automated processes. However, while the platform is user-friendly, setting up complex workflows may require an initial time investment, and users with highly specific requirements might find customization options limited.

Recent updates to the platform have introduced several enhancements, including the ability to capture shadow-root elements, a manual refresh of the app list, and access to major global large language models (LLMs). These updates reflect Octoparse AI’s commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements and continually improving user experience. However, their application only works on Windows 7 (64-bit) & later for now.

Pricing and plan details

Octoparse AI offers a range of pricing plans tailored to meet the diverse needs of individuals and businesses seeking workflow automation solutions. Below is a detailed breakdown of each plan:

For Individuals:

1. Free Plan
For individuals looking to explore basic automation capabilities without any financial commitment.

Cost: $0/month

Features:

• Unlimited basic usage
• Access to the Octoparse AI Platform
• Unlimited creation of custom apps
• Unlimited testing minutes
• Basic support

2. Personal Plan

This plan is ideal for individuals or small teams aiming to enhance their automation processes with advanced features and AI integrations.

Cost: $29/month (billed monthly)

Features:

• All features included in the Free Plan
• 15$ worth of free platform usage
• Unlimited access to preset premium apps
• AI responses
• Time triggers and webhooks
• Access to Octoparse web scrapers
• Provision of 3 Octoparse AI bots
• Standard support

For Businesses:

1. Team Plan
Ideal for teams seeking collaborative automation solutions with enhanced support and resource allocations.

Cost: $99/month (billed annually) or $119/month (billed monthly)

Features:

• All features included in the Personal Plan
• $75 worth of free platform usage
• Provision of 10 Octoparse AI bots
• Access for 5 users
• Shared workspace for team collaboration
• App versioning capabilities
• Priority support

2. Enterprise Plan
This plan is ideal for large organizations requiring scalable automation solutions with specialized support and security considerations.

Cost: Custom pricing (Contact Sales)

Features:

• All features included in the Team Plan
• Customized solutions tailored to specific business needs
• Advanced security and control features
• Designated technical support

Octoparse AI also has a Bot that is designed to execute workflows created in Octoparse AI Studio.

It runs one workflow at a time, the only way to run more than one workflow simultaneously is to install the Octoparse AI Bot application on multiple devices, which isn’t sustainable in the long run or for enterprise use cases that might require lots of processes to run concurrently.

Also the Bot has a separate application that only runs on Windows too. However, the Bot supports API control, which offers some degree of flexibility and efficiency in process execution.

Customer Experience Management (CEM)

Octoparse CEM is an AI-driven Customer Experience Management platform designed to serve as a central hub for customer interactions across various touchpoints. It integrates data from e-commerce reviews, social media, chat, surveys, and ticketing systems into a unified platform, enabling businesses to respond to customer cues effectively and transform feedback into actionable insights.

A notable advantage of Octoparse CEM is its AI-powered insights. The platform employs advanced AI models and natural language processing (NLP) semantic analysis to analyze unstructured feedback at scale. This allows businesses to deeply understand consumer sentiment, uncover typical pain points, and identify opportunities to improve services and boost conversion rates.

Furthermore, Octoparse CEM facilitates collaboration across teams by providing a comprehensive view of every customer interaction. By bringing together conversations, feedback, orders, and other customer data, it eliminates data silos and ensures that all relevant teams have access to complete data insights. This streamlined workflow enables teams to make data-driven decisions, refine products, and deliver exceptional experiences that drive growth and loyalty.

However, businesses considering Octoparse CEM should be prepared for the integration process, which may require time and resources to unify various data sources into the platform. Additionally, while the AI models are advanced, the effectiveness of insights depends on the quality and comprehensiveness of the input data.

How to Use Octoparse

The Setup Process

1. Download and Installation: Download the Octoparse application from the official website. Follow the installation prompts to set up the software on your device.

2. Check the Templates:

• Launch Octoparse and log in to your account.

• On the sidebar menu, click “Templates” to see the list of available prebuilt templates from which you can choose. You can create a custom task if you don’t find what you need.

3. Creating a New Custom Task:

• Hover on the “New” button on the top-left menu and click on Custom Task. For testing purposes, we are going to create a custom task.

• Enter the target website URL from which you wish to extract data and click “Save”

4. Configuring the Extraction Process:

• This will load the page in Octoparse’s built-in browser

• At the top right, you can turn on “Auto Login.” This will automatically log in to pages that require it.
• You can set up a workflow; the workflow tells Octoparse what information or what you want to do on the page.

• To extract the product title, click “Extract Data” > Click on the Amazon Product title > Text. (Octoparse generates a workflow based on your selections, outlining the steps it will take to extract the data).

• You should see the information to be extracted based on your selections in the “Data Preview” section.

5. Setup proxies

• To configure a proxy for your data extraction, click “Task Settings.”
• In the pop-up menu, choose the Anti-blocking tab and checkmark the option to Access websites via proxies. You should now be able to either use Octoparse proxies or configure your own proxies.

Note: Please be advised that the IP pool utilized for Octoparse cloud extraction is equivalent to a Datacenter proxy.

6. Running the Extraction:

• After setting up the task, click “Run” to execute the extraction.
• You can choose to run the task locally or in the cloud, depending on your subscription plan.

7. Exporting Data:

• Once the extraction is complete, export the data in your preferred format, such as Excel, CSV, JSON, or directly to a database.

How to Manage Subscription and Usage

1. Subscription Plans:

• Octoparse offers various subscription plans to cater to different user needs. These include Free, Standard, Professional, and Enterprise plans, each with distinct features and capabilities.

2. Upgrading or Downgrading Your Plan:

• To upgrade or downgrade your subscription, log in to your Octoparse account and navigate to the “Billing & Subscription” section.
• Select the desired plan and follow the prompts to confirm the change. Note that upgrading provides access to additional features, while downgrading may limit certain functionalities.

3. Managing Billing Information:

• In the “Billing & Subscription” section, you can update your payment methods, view invoices, and manage other billing-related information. Ensure that your payment details are current to avoid any interruptions in service.

4. Monitoring Usage:

• Keep track of your data extraction activities by reviewing the “Usage” section in your account dashboard. This area provides insights into the number of tasks run, data volume extracted, and other pertinent metrics.

5. Canceling the Subscription:

• If you decide to cancel your subscription, navigate to the “Billing & Subscription” section, select the “Cancel Subscription” option, and follow the provided instructions. Be aware of the cancellation policy and any potential fees associated with early termination.

Documentation and Support

Octoparse provides documentation and support resources aimed at helping users navigate its platform. The Help Center serves as the primary repository, offering articles on getting started, building custom scrapers, and tackling advanced topics like XPath and anti-blocking techniques. While the Help Center covers a broad spectrum of topics, its content occasionally lacks the depth necessary for users with more technical needs, leaving room for improvement in areas such as detailed troubleshooting and advanced configuration guides.

Additionally, Octoparse offers an OpenAPI specification for developers, providing basic details on endpoints for integrating with the platform. However, the API documentation is minimalistic and could benefit from more comprehensive examples and explanations to cater to developers working on complex projects.

In addition to written documentation, Octoparse supports its users through various channels. The Octoparse Blog supplements the Help Center with tutorials, case studies, and industry-specific insights.

Conclusion

Octoparse is a versatile and user-friendly web scraping platform that makes data collection accessible to everyone. Its no-code, workflow-based design makes it accessible to users without programming expertise, while advanced features such as pre-built templates, enterprise-level solutions, and AI-powered automation extend its appeal to more complex use cases.

However, for projects requiring advanced customization or enterprise-grade performance, Bright Data’s Web Scraper API is a premium alternative with pre-built, dedicated scraper APIs for over 100 popular websites, including Amazon, Walmart, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

These APIs are specifically tailored to handle the structure, dynamic elements, and anti-scraping measures of these websites. In contrast, Octoparse requires manual configuration for most websites, which may not be as optimized or efficient.

FAQs