Are you having problems bypassing Cloudflare, and you are looking for the best web scraping API to bypass it? Then you are on the right page, as the article below discusses some of the top web scraping APIs for that.
Overview of Best Scraping APIs for to Bypass
- Data Collector — Overall Best Scraping Tool to Bypass Cloudflare
- ScraperAPI — Most Effective Anti-Blocking Support
- Apify — Best For NodeJS And Python Developers
- ScraperAPI — Most Effective Anti-Blocking Support
- Smartproxy Web Scraping API — Best for Scraping Geo-Targeted Content
- Shifter Web Scraping API — Header Customisation Support
- ScrapingBee — Best for Parsing and Extracting Data
- WebScrapingAPI — Fastest API for Bypassing Cloudflare
- Zenscrape — Cheapest API for Bypassing Cloudflare
- ZenRows — Reliable Anti-Bot API
Best Scraping APIs to Bypass Cloudflare
Do you want to scrape a site protected by Cloudflare? Cloudflare is one of the most effective and strongest anti-bot systems websites use to protect their network and databases against evil actors and bots. Scraping from a Cloudflare-protected website is not an easy task, as the difficulty is on another level. If you are less experienced with evading anti-bot systems, you might not be able to do it. The usual disposition of many is to make use of web scraping APIs to scrape these kinds of sites.
In this article, you will be introduced to the web scraping APIs that can bypass Cloudflare easily. Usually, web scraping APIs are meant to avoid all kinds of blocks. With a scraping API, you just send a web request and get back the content of the page — they handle proxies, browsers, and captchas, as well as anti-bot systems like Cloudflare, Akamai, and PerimeterX.
1. Data Collector — Overall Best Scraping Tool to Bypass Cloudflare
- Pricing: Starts at $350 for 100K page loads
- Free Trials: Available
- Data Output Format: Excel, CSV
Bright Data’s Data Collector is a web scraping tool that takes away all of the headaches associated with web scraping, including bypassing Cloudflare. One thing you will come to like about this service is that it is usable even to non-coders.
There is a web interface where to visit to use their scraping templates. Currently, it supports the scraping of data from most of the most popular websites. You just have to choose a template, customize, and run it. With this service, you will not even have to worry about proxies — not to talk of Cloudflare.
Aside from the website, it provides an API that you can use as a developer to overcome all kinds of blocks and obstacles. Data Collector will help you collect and clean data from the web into structured, usable web data formats. It is flexible and adapts to changes made by websites automatically. Pricing for this service is based on a Pay-As-You-Go basis.
2. Apify — Best for NodeJS and Python Developers
- Pricing: Starts at $49 per month for 100 Actor compute units
- Free Trials: Starter plan comes with 10 Actor compute units
- Data Output Format: JSON
Another scraping API to bypass Cloudflare is Apify. Apify is an automation platform with a good number of specialized scrapers known as actors. Each actor is meant to scrape specific info from specific sites.
For example, there is the Amazon Product Scraper for scraping products on Amazon. This platform provides an SDK for Python and NodeJS, making them more tailored toward these programming languages. Unlike in the case of Bright Data’s Data Collector, Apify allow third-party developers to publish scrapers on their platform.
The Apify platform is quite different from Data Collector in the sense that you will have to use proxies from your end — not as Data Collectors handles them on your behalf.
However, the web scrapers for scraping websites protected by Cloudflare are developed with anti-blocking systems to make them evade Cloudflare detection as bots.
3. ScraperAPI — Most Effective Anti-Blocking Support
- Pricing: Starts from $49 for 100K Credits
- Free Trials: 5K Free Credits
- Data Output Format: HTML and JSON
ScraperAPI is arguably the number one scraping API-only tool. In a test we carried out with the likes of ScraperAPI, ScrapingBee, Crawlbase, and WebScrapingAPI, ScraperAPI came out as the most effective web scraping API against anti-bot systems. It was able to scrape websites protected by Cloudflare, PerimeterX, Datadome, and Akamai.
It is currently the best scraping API against difficult-to-scrape websites, including websites protected by Cloudflare. However, ScraperAPI does not return JSON; it returns raw HTML, and parsing is left to you.
This scraping API for bypassing Cloudflare makes use of proxies under the hood. It currently has a pool with over 40 million IPs cutting across datacenter, residential, and mobile IPs. In terms of geo-targeting support, ScraperAPI supports less than 20 countries.
The pricing for ScraperAPI is based on the number of successful requests. And a request can consume anything between 1 credit to 70 credits depending on the JavaScript rendering and proxy options you choose.
4. Smartproxy Web Scraping API — Best for Scraping Geo-Targeted Content
- Pricing: Starts from $50 for 25K Requests
- Free Trials: 3K Free Requests
- Data Output Format: HTML, JSON
The Smartproxy Web Scraping API is another API for bypassing Cloudflare. This API was developed by Smartproxy, a premium proxy provider. This API works exactly like ScraperAPI, only that it does have better geo-targeting support.
Smartproxy has got IPs from 195 countries, and as a user of their web scraping API, you have access to all of these. Smartproxy also does not have support for parsing and extracting data. When you send a web request, you get only the raw HTML of the page.
Smartproxy, among other things, supports headless scraping, which is perfect for scraping JavaScript-dependent pages. It bypasses captchas, uses its proxy network under the hood to avoid blocks, and is always online. In terms of pricing, the web scraping API is also one of the cheapest and most affordable options that you can trust.
5. ScrapingBee — Best for Parsing and Extracting Data
- Pricing: Starts from $49 for 100K Credits
- Free Trials: 1K Free Credits
- Data Output Format: HTML, JSON
ScrapingBee is arguably the best alternative to ScraperAPI. And let’s face it, they both work great. However, ScrapingBee is a better tool in terms of extracting data.
Remember, ScraperAPI only provide you with the raw HTML, and extracting important data points is left to you? ScrapingBee has a feature known as extraction rules which you can use to extract data via CSS selectors. But that is not all; ScrapingBee is also better at executing Javascript because of its support for lightweight automation, such as clicking buttons and scrolling.
However, ScraperAPI is still the rugged one of the two. This is because of its anti-blocking system, which dwarfs that of ScrapingBee. ScraperAPI is also faster compared to ScrapingBee.
In terms of pricing, they are basically the same. This means that your specific requirement will be the major deciding factor.
6. Shifter Web Scraping API — Header Customisation Support
- Pricing: Starts from $45 for 100K Credits
- Free Trials: Free Credits Available
- Data Output Format: HTML, JSON
Shifter has joined the league of proxy providers with web scraping APIs. Some of the early birds include Oxylabs, Smartproxy, and Bright Data. For Shifter, you can use it to collect data from any web page regardless of the anti-bot system protecting it.
In fact, it works against Cloudflare, Akamai, and even captchas. One thing you will come to like about the service is its multithreaded nature, allowing you to send multiple requests at a time. It also scales nicely and does so automatically.
This web scraping API is a customization beast as it does have support for custom IP geolocation, cookies, and even request headers. While this is available as a REST API, it does provide SDKs for popular languages and frameworks. It provides an SDK for Python, Go, NodeJS, and Scrapy.
7. WebScrapingAPI — Fastest API for Bypassing Cloudflare
- Pricing: Starts from $49 for 100K Credits
- Free Trials: 5K Free Credits
- Data Output Format: HTML, JSON
The WebScrapingAPI might not be popular and might even be said to have terrible branding as par its name. However, its scraping API is arguably one of the best when it comes to evading the Cloudflare anti-bot system. With this, you will not have to worry about bypassing anti-bot systems such as Cloudflare and Akamai.
It also handles proxies, captchas, and headless for you. One thing you will come to like about it is its support for parsing. Just like ScrapingBee, it does have support for parsing and extracting data using. CSS selectors.
According to a test we carried out some time back, WebScrapingAPI performed excellently well in terms of speed compared to ScraperAPI and ScrapingBee, making it our favorite in terms of speed.
It also has one of the best when it comes to the provision of libraries and SDKs for cramming languages and scraping frameworks. In terms of pricing, the WebScrapingAPI is a lot like ScraperAPI and ScrapingBee.
8. Crawlbase — Best for Scraping Specific Websites to JSON
- Pricing: Starts from $29 for 50K Credits
- Free Trials: 1K Free Credits
- Data Output Format: HTML, JSON
Crawlbase was formerly known as Proxycrawl and can be said to be one of the best web scraping APIs in the market. From our tests, it is also one of the best APIs for bypassing Cloudflare. One thing you will come to like about Crawlbase is its parsing.
Currently, it does have specific websites of target that you can get structured JSON as a response instead of raw HTML. Unlike ScrapingBee and WebScrapingAPI, where you need to use CSS selectors, this is done for you automatically.
However, unlike ScrapingBee, which you can use on all websites, there are specific websites you can use, the ScraperAPI provided by Crawlbase. These websites include Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Bing, and Quora, among a few others.
The service is powered by its own proxy network with millions of IPs. Currently, this service offers one of the best support for SDKs and libraries for popular programming languages.
9. Zenscrape — Cheapest API for Bypassing Cloudflare
- Pricing: Starts from $30 for 250K Credits
- Free Trials: 5K Free Credits
- Data Output Format: HTML
Are you on a low budget but need to bypass Cloudflare? Then here is Zenscrape for you. The Zenscrape API is a scraper API that you can integrate easily. With this, you will not only evade blocks from regular websites but also bypass the Cloudflare protection used by some difficult-to-bot websites.
Zenscrape helps you handle proxies, captchas, and all forms of anti-spams, including Akamai and Cloudflare. From the test we carried out, it came out as one of the fastest web APIs for web scraping. As with other scraping APIs mentioned in the articles, Zenscrape also does render Javascript using a headless Chrome.
In terms of pricing, Zenscrape is quite affordable, as you can get started at $30. This gives you about 250K API credits. The API cost per request varies depending on the proxy and JavaScript rendering options used. From our performance test, Zenscrape standard proxies are usable on most of the top websites on the Internet.
10. ZenRows — Reliable Anti-Bot API
- Pricing: Starts from $49 for 250K Credits
- Free Trials: 5K Free Credits
- Data Output Format: HTML, JSON
ZenRows is actually one of the newest web scraping APIs out there. However, it has shown to be one of the best, especially when it comes to evading anti-bot systems. Some of the top anti-bot systems that ZenRows is effective against include Cloudflare, Akamai, PerimeterX, and many others.
Being a modern anti-bot API, it does have support for JavaScript, which is increasingly becoming a part of the modern web. While the starting price for this service is the same as big players like ScraperAPI and ScrapingBee, the number of API credits you get is quite big compared to what they offer.
FAQs
Q. What are APIs for Bypassing Cloudflare?
Cloudflare is a notorious anti-bot system used by websites to protect their websites from bot traffic. Once a website is protected by Cloudflare, it gets up to 60 percent fewer requests than it usually gets. This is because of how effective it is.
Web scraping APIs that are able to bypass the protection it provides is known as APIs for bypassing Cloudflare. While most web scraping APIs will claim to provide such support, many of them do not meet up with such promises in reality.
Q. Is Bypassing Cloudflare Free with APIs?
No, it is not free. All web scraping API that can bypass Cloudflare comes with a price tag. The best you will get Is a limited free trial. There is no free API you can use for bypassing Cloudflare or any effective anti-bot systems.
This is because of developing and maintaining such API cost money, and no one will do that for you for free. If you have a small budget, you are better off looking for cheaper options than looking for outrightly free APIs, as you won’t get much in the market right now.
Q. Is Bypassing Cloudflare Legal?
One of the main uses of Cloudflare is to protect against DDoS attacks and prevent spam in general. While a DDoS attack is illegal, bypassing Cloudflare is not illegal. If you bypass Cloudflare without causing any harm to servers, then there is nothing wrong.
What makes it illegal is what you do after bypassing it. We recommend you seek the advice of a competent legal practitioner as we are not one and, as such, not responsible for any use case you put what you read on this page into.
Conclusion
Cloudflare is one of those anti-spam systems that could bring you to your knees, as beginner knowledge of evading blocks won’t work with it. If you are dealing with a Cloudflare-protected website as a target, then the best thing for you to do is make use of a web scraping API that can help you bypass it especially if you are interested in scraping data from it. The APIs described in the article above are some of the top APIs for bypassing Cloudflare.
