In today‘s data-driven world, information is power. The ability to efficiently collect vast amounts of data from websites can give businesses a major competitive advantage. This is where data scraping comes in.
Data scraping, also known as web scraping, is the process of using bots to extract data and content from a website. The data is then exported into a format that is more useful for the user, such as a spreadsheet or API.
As we move further into the 2020s, data will only become more vital for businesses looking to understand their customers, track competitors, generate leads, and make smarter decisions. A reliable and powerful data scraping tool is an essential part of any company‘s tech stack.
But with so many data scraping tools available, how do you choose the right one for your needs? Here are some key factors to consider:
Ease of Use: How technical is the setup process? Can you start scraping quickly without needing to know how to code?
Scalability: As your data needs grow, can the tool handle scraping larger amounts of data from more web pages? Look for a tool that offers flexible plans.
Features: Does the tool offer useful features like scheduled scraping, data export options, ability to scrape dynamic pages, different proxy options, etc.?
Reliability: Will the tool consistently deliver the data you need with minimal downtime or errors? Read reviews to gauge reliability.
Support: If you run into issues, how responsive and helpful is the tool‘s customer support?
Pricing: Does the pricing model work for your budget? Watch out for hidden fees on top of monthly plans.
Taking these factors into consideration, let‘s dive into our picks for the top 10 data scraping tools to power your business in 2024 and beyond:
1. Octoparse
Octoparse is an extremely user-friendly scraping tool that doesn‘t require any coding knowledge. Its intuitive point-and-click interface makes it a great choice for beginners looking to scrape data with minimal technical setup.
One of Octoparse‘s standout features is its pre-built scraping templates for popular sites like Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor and more. You can start collecting data from these sites in just a few clicks. For sites without a template, Octoparse‘s auto-detection feature does a great job identifying the data you want to extract.
Octoparse offers both desktop and cloud-based scraping, the ability to schedule scraping tasks, and export data in various formats like Excel, CSV and API. While it doesn‘t have some advanced features, Octoparse covers the needs of most users at a reasonable price point, with plans starting at $75/month.
2. ParseHub
ParseHub is another powerful data scraping tool that requires no coding. It handles both static and dynamic websites with ease, including infinite scrolling, drop-down menus, and pop-up windows.
ParseHub offers a very generous free plan that includes 200 pages per run. Paid plans, starting at $149/month, offer more pages and advanced features like API access, sub-queries, and file uploads. So it‘s a great option if you want to test out the tool before committing to a paid plan.
The desktop app is available on Windows, Mac and Linux. Projects are stored in the cloud, so you can access them from anywhere. ParseHub‘s learning curve is slightly steeper than Octoparse, but it offers more customization options for advanced users.
3. Scrapy
Scrapy is an open-source framework for building powerful, customized web scrapers with Python. While it requires more technical knowledge to set up compared to GUI tools like Octoparse and ParseHub, Scrapy is extremely flexible and scalable.
If you have Python programming skills, Scrapy is a great choice for large-scale scraping projects. It has built-in support for exporting data in multiple formats, crawling pages recursively, and extracting data using CSS selectors and XPath expressions. There are also many plugins and extensions available to add extra functionality to Scrapy.
Because it‘s open-source, Scrapy is free to use. But do factor in the cost of development time to build and maintain your scraper. If you don‘t have in-house Python expertise, you may need to hire a developer to assist you.
4. Bright Data
Formerly known as Luminati, Bright Data is a powerful tool for collecting real-time data at scale. It provides access to a huge pool of over 72 million residential IPs across the globe, so you can avoid the blocks and CAPTCHAs that often come with data scraping.
In addition to its robust proxy network, Bright Data offers an automated web scraping tool and data collection APIs that support all coding languages. It‘s compliant with GDPR and CCPA regulations, an important consideration for businesses.
Bright Data‘s plans are priced based on bandwidth usage and number of requests, making it a good choice for high-volume scraping needs. However, it is one of the pricier tools on the market. Request a demo to get pricing specific to your project needs.
5. WebHarvy
WebHarvy is a point-and-click scraping tool for Windows that offers a good balance of power and ease of use. Its visual web scraping designer makes it simple to teach the tool how to navigate pages and what data to scrape.
One handy WebHarvy feature is the ability to schedule scraping tasks and receive scraped data by email on a regular basis. It also offers a good variety of export options including Excel, CSV and JSON.
WebHarvy is an affordable choice for individuals and small businesses. A desktop license costs $139 and includes lifetime free upgrades. If you need to scale up, cloud-based plans start at $20/month.
6. Apify
Apify is a cloud-based platform for building and running web scraping and automation tools. It provides an online environment for developing your own actors (programs for completing a specific task) using JavaScript or Python.
For those who prefer a visual tool, Apify also offers pre-built scrapers for popular sites like Amazon, Google Maps and Instagram that require no coding. Simply enter your target URLs and data fields, then run the actor in the Apify cloud.
Apify offers a free plan for small projects and paid plans starting at $49/month that include more actor run time, memory, and storage. Its robust developer tools and engaged community make it a great choice for building custom scrapers.
7. 80legs
80legs is a powerful tool for large-scale web crawling and scraping. Rather than being a tool itself, 80legs provides the infrastructure and a simple API for developing your own customized crawlers in any programming language.
With 80legs, you have control over the number of concurrent crawlers, throttling settings, and geo-targeting. It offers some helpful default crawling templates to get started quickly. Your scraped data is delivered in XML or JSON format for easy integration with databases and applications.
80legs used to be prohibitively expensive for small businesses, but they have since lowered their prices to be more competitive. Plans now start at $200/month for 20 parallel crawlers and 250,000 pages crawled. For enterprise-level scraping needs, 80legs is worth considering.
8. Diffbot
Diffbot uses machine learning and computer vision to automatically extract clean, structured data from web pages. Rather than selecting individual page elements to scrape, you simply define the type of data you want – article, discussion, product, image, etc. – and Diffbot will intelligently parse the relevant information.
Diffbot‘s Crawlbot tool automates the entire web scraping process from crawling to data extraction. It handles JavaScript-rendered content, manages cookies, and retries failed requests. The extracted data is delivered via API or as a JSON or CSV file.
For users who want more control, Diffbot also offers custom API plans that allow you to fine-tune your data extraction. Pricing is based on the number of API calls and processing units used, starting at $299/month for the Startup plan.
9. ScrapingBee
ScrapingBee is an API for web scraping that handles proxies, browsers, and CAPTCHAs for you. Rather than maintaining your own scraping infrastructure, you can send HTTP requests to the ScrapingBee API and receive structured JSON data in response.
ScrapingBee offers a Javascript and Python SDK, and supports GET and POST requests, custom headers and IP geotargeting. It also provides a useful Chrome extension for testing APIs and previewing results.
With plans starting at just $49/month for 100,000 API credits, ScrapingBee is an affordable choice for developers who want to outsource the hassle of web scraping. Its intuitive interface and solid documentation make it easy to get started.
10. ProxyCrawl
ProxyCrawl is another API-based scraping tool that takes care of proxy rotation, browser rendering, and CAPTCHAs. It offers three types of APIs: a Scraper API for extracting data from web pages, a Crawler API for crawling entire websites, and a Leads API for generating B2B leads.
Compared to ScrapingBee, ProxyCrawl offers more customization options like the ability to execute JavaScript, set geotargeting, and upload your own proxy list. This makes it a good choice for advanced scraping projects with specific requirements.
ProxyCrawl offers a free plan for up to 1,000 requests per month. Paid plans start at $79/month for 200,000 requests and include premium features like real-time support and data exporting. Enterprise plans with higher volumes and a dedicated account manager are also available.
Emerging Data Scraping Tools to Watch:
In addition to the established players, there are a few up-and-coming data scraping tools worth mentioning:
ScrapeStack: An API for scraping, crawling and real-time data extraction backed by a large proxy pool. Offers an generous free plan.
Grepsr: A fully managed web scraping service that delivers structured data in any format you need. Simply submit your data requirements and they will build a custom scraper.
Mozenda: Cloud-based point and click tool that offers a user-friendly agent builder for defining your scraping tasks. Handles large-scale data extraction.
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Data Scraping Tools:
No matter which data scraping tool you choose, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Respect website terms of service and robots.txt instructions. Only scrape websites that allow it.
Start with a small, focused project to test out a new scraping tool before ramping up to larger scraping tasks.
Be considerate by limiting your request rate and using delays between requests. You don‘t want to overload the web server or get your IP blocked.
Regularly monitor and test your scraper to catch any issues caused by website updates or formatting changes.
Use a proxy service to avoid getting blocked by rotating through different IP addresses. Some scraping tools have built-in proxy support.
Invest time in data cleaning and processing to make sure your scraped data is accurate and usable for analysis. Don‘t underestimate this step.
Consider the long-term costs of data scraping, including proxies, data storage and developer time to maintain scrapers. The cheapest plan isn‘t always the most economical.
The Future of Data Scraping
As the volume of web data continues to grow exponentially, data scraping will only become more essential for businesses of all sizes. The tools and techniques for scraping data are constantly evolving to keep up with changes in web technologies.
In the coming years, we can expect to see more AI and machine learning being used to make data scraping smarter and more efficient. There will likely be a continued shift toward cloud-based and API-driven scraping solutions that require less technical overhead.
At the same time, web scraping will face new challenges as privacy regulations like GDPR restrict how personal data can be collected and used. Businesses will need to be transparent about their scraping activities and ensure they are compliant with data protection laws.
As data becomes the fuel that drives more and more business decisions, investing in a reliable data scraping tool and process will give companies a competitive edge. The key is to continually test, iterate and find the approach that delivers the best ROI for your specific data needs.