Web scraping APIs provide an easy way to extract data from websites without needing to build and maintain scrapers yourself. With a web scraping API, you send requests specifying the target URL and parameters, and the API service handles the scraping, proxy rotation, bypassing anti-scraping measures, and more.
Many scraping APIs also parse the extracted data into structured formats like JSON or export to CSV. This saves you time since you don‘t have to write parsers and clean up the scraped data.
In this comprehensive guide, we will compare the top web scraping APIs available in 2024 based on key criteria:
- Scraping success rate
- Speed/response time
- Locations and proxy network
- Parsing capabilities
- Pricing and plans
- Ease of use
We‘ve tested and reviewed over 15+ web scraping APIs and narrowed down the list to the top 7 recommended options for different needs and budgets.
Contents
What to Look for in a Web Scraping API
Here are the key factors to evaluate when choosing a web scraping API:
Scraping Success Rate – The API should reliably extract data from target sites, especially challenging ones protected by anti-bot measures. High success rates indicate robust scraping infrastructure.
Speed – Fast response times allow scraping data at scale. APIs optimized for high concurrency and throughput perform better.
Proxy Network – Large, high-quality residential proxy pools in diverse geo locations help evade blocks and scrape accurately by geo.
Parsing & Data Formats – Built-in parsers, especially for common sites like Google and ecommerce, save time. Exporting structured data in JSON, CSV, etc. avoids manual data wrangling.
Pricing – Cost structures vary based on requests, API credits, monthly subscriptions, etc. Choose plans fitting your budget and use case – large scale vs occasional scraping.
Ease of Use – Developer-friendly APIs with good documentation, libraries & SDKs for common languages, and easy workflow for sending scraping requests.
We will now dive into reviews of the top web scraping APIs based on research and hands-on tests against these criteria.
Reviews of the Best Web Scraping APIs
1. Oxylabs
Highlights
- Extremely robust and reliable scraping
- Powerful parsing capabilities
- Large residential proxy network
- Comprehensive locations and target site support
Overview
Oxylabs provides a suite of battle-tested web scraping APIs built on top of their industry-leading residential proxies. Their tools include Web Scraper API, SERP Scraper for search engines, Ecommerce Scraper, and Real Estate API.
We found Oxylabs to have the highest success rates across all types of sites – including difficult ones like Google and ecommerce protected by bot mitigation. Their massive proxy pool (100M+ IPs) is spread across 195 locations, facilitating accurate geo-targeting.
Oxylabs‘ scraping APIs stand out for their versatility and parsing capabilities. The AI-powered parser can structurally extract data from any site with no additional configuration. You can schedule scraping jobs and export results in JSON or CSV format.
They offer comprehensive libraries and integrations including proxy, HTTP API, and webhooks. Scraping requests are easy to make without complex setup. Oxylabs also provides great customer support.
The downside is the pricing is on the higher side, starting at $49 for 17.5K scrapes. But for mission-critical scraping, Oxylabs provides great ROI given the resilience, quality of results, and time savings.
Locations: 195 countries
Pricing: Starts at $49 for 17,500 scrapes
Proxy Network: 100M+ residential IPs
Parsing: Built-in AI parser for any site
Free Trial: 7 days, 5K requestsVisit Oxylabs to learn more.
2. Bright Data
Highlights
- Blazing fast scraping speed
- Reliable results at scale
- 72M residential proxies
- Convenient proxy-like integration
Overview
Bright Data operates one of the largest proxy networks and offers robust web scraping through their Web Unlocker and SERP API products.
The scraping APIs harness Bright Data‘s pool of 72M residential proxies to deliver speed, scale, and accuracy. During our tests, Bright Data‘s APIs scraped Google and ecommerce sites blazingly fast while maintaining 98%+ success rates.
They make it easy to target any country and scraper settings are similar to proxy managers. This gives Bright Data scraping a very proxy-like feel while automating the heavy lifting.
The SERP API focuses on search engine scraping and comes with built-in parsers for Google, Bing, Yandex. Web Unlocker handles broader web scraping needs beyond search engines.
Bright Data scraping is very fast and highly reliable for large-scale data extraction. The pricing starts at $500/month for 500K scrapes which is very cost-efficient for serious scraping. They also offer pay-as-you-go plans.
Locations: Global targeted scraping
Pricing: Starts at $500/month - $2.25 to $3 per 1K scrapes
Proxy Network: 72M+ residential IPs
Parsing: Search engines (SERP API)
Free Trial: 7 days with $50 credit Try Bright Data Scraping for free with a $50 trial credit.
3. Smartproxy
Highlights
- Reliable results across sites
- Fast response time
- Affordable pricing plans
- 40M+ residential proxies
Overview
Smartproxy offers a solid web scraping API alongside their leading proxy service. It lets you target web pages, search engines through SERP API, and ecommerce sites.
In our testing, Smartproxy scraped sites fast and consistently reached 100% success rates – including on challenging ecommerce product pages. The response times averaged 4-6 seconds across target sites.
The web scraping API can extract data from any site. The SERP and ecommerce APIs include built-in parsers for cleaner structured data. You get AI-based rotating proxies matching targets‘ geo-location.
Smartproxy has a large pool of 40M+ residential IPs making up its proxy network across 195 locations worldwide. The API is easy to use – just set the target URL, location, and other parameters.
The pricing is very affordable starting at $50/month for 500K successful scrapes ($0.10 per 1K). Smartproxy scraping delivers great value by blending performance, reliability, and low cost.
Locations: 195 countries
Pricing: Starts at $50/month - $0.10 per 1K scrapes
Proxy Network: 40M+ residential IPs
Parsing: Google, Amazon sites
Free Trial: 3 days, 3K requestsGet started with Smartproxy web scraping API.
4. ScraperAPI
Highlights
- Affordable pricing
- Easy integration
- Good for basic websites
- Generous free tier
Overview
ScraperAPI is a budget-friendly web scraping API starting at just $49/month. It lets you scrape data from any site along with built-in parsers for Google and Amazon.
The key advantage of ScraperAPI is affordable pricing that works for developers with limited scraping budgets. It also has generous free tiers up to 5K requests/month.
ScraperAPI uses proxy rotation and randomness to avoid getting blocked. However, our tests found the success rates around 85-90% on more advanced sites protected by bot mitigation compared to 95%+ for top competitors.
But for scraping basic websites, ScraperAPI delivers decent results, especially for the low pricing. It offers convenient libraries for Python, Node.js, PHP, Ruby, etc. to simplify integration.
If you have smaller scraping needs and want to get started cheaply, ScraperAPI is a decent pick. For business-critical scraping, enterprise tools like Oxylabs and BrightData are more robust options.
Locations: 12 countries
Pricing: Starts at $49/month
Proxy Network: Unclear
Parsing: Google, Amazon
Free Tier: 5K requests/monthSign up for ScraperAPI to try their affordable web scraping.
5. Octoparse
Highlights
- Intuitive visual interface
- Built-in browser automation
- Affordable pricing
- Free trial with no credit card
Overview
Octoparse is a web scraping tool focused on ease of use, requiring no coding. It offers a visual interface to scrape data without writing any code.
You can automate scraping workflows visually by recording browser actions. Octoparse also has built-in parsers for many popular sites and data export options.
The pricing plans are affordable starting at $99/month for 10K page visits. Octoparse really stands out by offering a generous and completely free trial tier with no credit card needed.
For basic web scraping needs, Octoparse‘s visual automation and generous free trial make it easy to get started without coding. It may lack some more advanced capabilities compared to developer APIs.
But for non-coders who want automated scraping, Octoparse is a leading choice thanks to the intuitive visual interface paired with affordable pricing.
Locations: Global
Pricing: Starts at $99/month for 10K page visits
Proxy Network: Unclear
Parsing: Built-in parsers for many sites
Free Trial: Generous free tier, no credit card requiredGet started with Octoparse using their unlimited free trial.
6. ParseHub
Highlights
- Easy visual interface
- Built-in automation
- Affordable pricing
- Generous free tier
Overview
ParseHub is another leading web scraping tool for non-developers. It lets you visually build scrapers and extract data without coding.
The visual interface makes it easy to scrape data by configuring selectors or recording browser steps. ParseHub automatically handles proxy rotation, waits, and retries when scraping.
For developers, ParseHub offers API access for integrating scrapers into apps. It also has exports, scheduling, and collaboration features.
Plans are priced affordably starting at $99/month for 10K pages scraped. ParseHub has a generous free tier making it easy to test. Overall, it strikes a great balance between ease of use and customization.
Locations: Global
Pricing: Starts at $99/month for 10K pages
Proxy Network: Unclear
Parsing: Visual extraction
Free Tier: Generous limits, no credit card requiredSign up on ParseHub to start web scraping visually.
7. ProxyCrawl
Highlights
- Optimized for web automation
- Powerful JS rendering
- Feature-rich
- Generous free trial
Overview
ProxyCrawl focuses on enabling web automation through their scraping API. It has advanced browser emulation capabilities like handling JavaScript rendering.
You can build scripts to automate form filling, clicks, scrolls, and other actions through ProxyCrawl. This makes it possible to scrape dynamic sites dependent on JavaScript execution.
ProxyCrawl also offers parsing capabilities like extracting prices or comments from Amazon. Its API handles proxy rotation, headers randomization, and bot mitigation.
The free trial provides 20K API calls allowing you to test ProxyCrawl at meaningful scale. Overall, ProxyCrawl brings together data extraction with deep web automation abilities at affordable pricing tiers.
Locations: Global
Pricing: Starts at €99/month for 50K calls
Proxy Network: Unclear
Parsing: Amazon, Shopping, HTML extraction
Free Trial: 20K free API calls Try ProxyCrawl with their generous free trial.
Key Factors to Choose the Right Web Scraping API
With an overview of the top web scraping APIs, let‘s discuss some key considerations when deciding on the right solution for your use case:
Scraping Scale and Frequency
- For large-scale production scraping, Oxylabs and BrightData provide industry-leading results. Their enterprise proxy infrastructure delivers speed, reliability, and resilience.
- For high frequency scraping with changing data, Smartproxy strikes a great balance of performance and value.
- ScraperAPI and Octoparse better suit smaller scale scraping needs.
Target Website Difficulty
- Heavily protected sites like Google require advanced proxies and evasion capabilities where Oxylabs excels.
- For complex JavaScript-heavy sites, ProxyCrawl has excellent emulation and automation capabilities.
- ScraperAPI works decently for basic websites without advanced bot mitigation.
Budget Constraints
- With generous free tiers, Octoparse and ParseHub are great for testing scraping capabilities for free.
- For moderate monthly budgets,Smartproxy and ScraperAPI provide solid quality for the cost.
- Oxylabs and BrightData enterprise offerings deliver premium results for more serious budgets.
Technical Skill Level
- For non-developers, visual tools like Octoparse and ParseHub remove the need for coding.
- Developer-focused APIs like Oxylabs, BrightData, and Smartproxy require coding but enable advanced customization.
Data Export and Parsing Needs
- Oxylabs has the most powerful built-in parser able to structurally extract data from any site.
- Purpose-built scraping APIs like SERP APIs include parsers for particular data types like search results.
- General web scraping APIs provide raw HTML scraping – you‘ll need to parse data separately.
Conclusion
Extracting web data using scraping APIs frees you from building and maintaining scrapers internally. There are excellent API options available today that take care of proxy management, bot mitigation, speed, and scalability.
Leading scraping APIs from Oxylabs, BrightData, Smartproxy, ScraperAPI, and others scored highly in our research across criteria like success rates, response time, locations, parsing capabilities, and ease of use.
Carefully evaluate your specific scraping use case constraints like scale, target site, technical expertise, and budget. This will help determine the right API service that delivers the best results for your needs.
Automated scraping helps unlock the tremendous potential of web data at scale. We hope these reviews and comparisons help you pick the perfect web scraping API and extract maximum value.
Let us know if you have any other questions in the comments!
