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Web Scraping Tools are designed to extract information and data from a particular website. It is the process of fetching, parsing, and organizing data from those web pages you are extracting the data.
It involves writing a script or program to interact with a website’s HTML code, retrieve specific pieces of data, and then store or process that data for various purposes.
Web scraping tools are often used to collect time-consuming data that can be used for various purposes, such as data mining, analysis, price comparison, research, content aggregation, monitoring changes on websites, etc.
Below mentioned are the 7 best web scraping tools of 2024:
1. Bright Data
Bright Data, being a Web Scraping Software, is responsible for extracting data through its bots and also provides the required security and privacy. It is one of the best such software which is the first choice for users.
Data Extraction: This scraping software ensures the smoother extraction of data without any complexities and collects data from various sources.
Multiple formats: The extracted data and information are arranged in different formats to categorise and make it convenient for the users. The formats range from spreadsheets to. CSV.
Web Analytics: The software provides a toolset for analyzing the website to optimise users’ experience and also filters useful websites for them.
Integration: Bright Data allows users to integrate different and multiple proxies like SwitchyOmega Proxy, MoreLogin, AdsPower Proxy, Undetectable etc. with its software to enhance the abilities of scraping websites. The feature of integration helps users to access more links, scripts, and images efficiently and to collect useful data.
Scraping browser API: This is helpful in website locking; it automatically bypasses blocking and solves CAPTCHA and security checks. It is not only helpful in easier web scraping but also helps users to save costs and time. This feature of Bright Data manages all the unblocking of required websites on its own saving users from extra work.
#5 Key Features That Make Bright Data No. 1
1. Bright Data Scraping Browser is easy to use, and also for beginners.
2. Bright Data Web Unlocker has built-in and fully-automatic unblocking capabilities.
3. They have 100% success rate, That’s remarkable.
4. They provide results in CSV, HTML, JSON
5. They provide 72+ million real-peer Residential IPs.
Pros and Cons of Bright Data
Pros
- Bright Data has User-Guide available on its official website or application for helping beginners through each step.
- It is compatible with Playwright (Python), (Node.js) and Selenium
- A 7 day free trial is available + 50 % discount
- You can easily scrap web data from any language, country or device.
- It has various tools for unblocking websites and bypassing different anti-unblocking software
Cons
- It can be comparatively expensive for some users.
- It is available only in 8 languages which makes it limited to certain language.
Pricing of Bright Data
It has 4 different pricing plans for you so that you can pick the best one as per your business model or requirements.
- Pay As You Go: Price starts at $4/CPM
- Growth Plan: It will cost you $500 ($3.06/CPM)
- Business Plan: This plan is for big business owners, it costs $1000 ($2.70/CPM)
- Enterprise Plan: You have to contact the Bright Data team for this, to “Get a Quote”.
Diffbot
Diffbot is a web scraping tool which is used to extract or gather data from a website by using Artificial Intelligence.
Lead Verification: The web scraping tool, Diffbot, supports lead Verification or verification for quality content. It ensures that it collects data which are useful for the users and it can further arrange the data gathered.
Management Tools: It provides tools for the management of data extracted so that users do not need to worry about managing the data in categories. It also provides a tool for budget management to ensure that users do not face any complexities while using the software.
Import and Export: The software allows to import and export data and structured information to any other platform. It allows integration with other applications to ensure that users can analyse the data and use it accordingly.
Automation: Diffbot has automation features which extract, categorise and arrange extracted data on its own without letting the users get tense about these. It automatically categorises useful and latest data and make the process easier for users.
Pros and Cons of Diffbot
Pros
- Helps users to save time from building their own web scraping system.
- Gather accurate and detailed information from websites.
- Assistance is provided if needed to operate the software.
- A free trial is available to ensure its worth.
Cons
- It is not available for Windows.
- It can be complex for beginners.
Pricing Plan of Diffbot
The Diffbot startup plan is available for $299/month and plus plan is available for $899/month.
Oxylabs
Oxylabs is one of the most useful and reliable web scraping software that provides services to a wide range of industries and e-platforms.
It usually is responsible for ethical data extraction and helping its users in their businesses.
Availability of Multiple Proxies: The software provides a wide range of proxies like Residential Proxies, Shared Data Proxies and Dedicated Data Center Proxies to perform market research, and brand & email protection and Review & Price monitoring.
The availability of multiple proxies helps the system in automatic proxy rotation to ensure the security of the users.
Unblocking: Oxylabs has the feature for web unblocking available in its software, which is best for ‘Real Estate Scraping’. It tricks advanced anti-scraping systems and extracts reliable data for users without creating any trouble for users. It can also extract data from IP – blocked websites by unlocking geographical restrictions which cannot be accessed otherwise.
Easy Integration: Its proxy services can easily be integrated into existing applications and projects to access data from desirable systems and websites. They also provide the facility for proxy integration into different web scraping tools to make the extraction easier and simpler.
Extensive and Global Proxy Coverage: It provides various proxies which can be accessed globally and helps to access information across the world by tricking IP bans of the systems or websites. It allows to access data irrespective of the countries, cities and continents.
Pros and Cons of Oxylabs
Pros
- Its services can be used in a wide range of industries
- Supports automatic filtration and rotation
- Its sessions can be managed by users to collect reliable data
- Various proxies available for smoother data extraction
- Can bypass various IP locking and access useful information
Cons
- It can be comparatively expensive for some users to access its premium tools
- Less control over accessing the data
- It can be complicated for some users as it requires good knowledge of the installation
Pricing Plan of Oxylabs
Regular
- Pay as you go – $15/GB
- Starter – $300/month
- Advanced – $600/month
- Premium – $800
Enterprise
- Venture – $1,750/month
- Business – $3,000/month
- Corporate – $4,000/month
- Custom+ – starts from $5,000/month
Apify
Apify is a web scraping software responsible for extracting data from websites for users which can further help them in their businesses. It deploys a web crawler to access the website and gather information.
Data Storage Solution: Apify allows users to use data storage through which they can save the scraped data and manage them accordingly. It is easy to use and it enables its users to save the data in useful ways for future use.
Proxy Rotation: It provides the feature of rotation of proxies available on the platform that further unblock IP blocking and access restricted data of websites.
Apify Actors: These are tools for web scraping that are easy to integrate. It runs without any custom code which makes it quicker to perform the task. These are pre-built and can be reused for common web Scraping.
Customization: Apify allows users to customise the pre-built actors according to their needs. One can create custom actors to perform desirable tasks.
Automation: One of its important features is automation which ensures the automation of repetitive tasks. This feature saves the developer’s effort and time and helps in automatic navigation through various websites to scrap useful data.
Apify Community: It provides a platform for its users to seek help and support and Apify provides solutions to their queries and troubles on any related project.
Pros and Cons of Apify
Pros
- It allows customization for tackling difficult scraping tasks
- It enables users to bypass the IP blocking system to scrap reliable data
- The User-friendly interface of the software makes it easy to use even for beginners
- Allows easy Integration to other platforms for better functioning
- A free trial is available
Cons
- Cost can be higher depending on services
- It requires maintenance with the ongoing changes in the software
- Doesn’t consist of any tool or feature for mobile app scraping
Pricing Plan of Apify
Monthly Billing
- Starter – $49/month
- Scale – $499/month
- Business – $999/month
- Enterprise – Custom
Yearly Billing
- Starter – $44/month
- Scale – $449/month
- Business – $899/month
- Enterprise – Custom
ScrapingBee
It is a powerful web scraping software to gather information from websites and manage it. It also provides efficient tools and solutions for extracting the data useful for users which makes it a quality data scraping software.
JavaScript Rendering: It allows users to run custom Javascript code on any desirable website where they want to scrape and retrieve information.
Geo-targeting: It helps users to access websites and data available on websites by targeting any particular geographical location which might be useful for users.
Screenshots: It enables users to capture screenshots of the screen of a website that they want to scrape. It helps to gather information without any HTML code making it simpler for users.
Automated Management: One of its features saves users from spending days sourcing the right proxy provider. It automatically manages data and browsers making web scraping less complicated for users.
Customization: It allows users to customise web-scraping engines without any coding. It saves time for users by avoiding coding and allowing customization.
Pros and Cons of ScrapingBee
Pros
- It allows bulk scraping to extract data from various websites at one time
- SSL Encryption maintains the privacy of the data of users
- Supports easy integration of API scraper into other platforms
- It ensures continuous data extraction that is reliable and useful
Cons
- It allows limited customisation
- It is not so reliable for offline scraping
Pricing Plan of ScrapingBee
- Freelance – $49/month
- Startup – $99/month
- Business – $249/month
- Business+ – $599+/month
ParseHub
ParseHub is one of the most reliable web scraping software which offers various features and tools to extract data from any website without any complexity.
Below mentioned are the features, pros and cons, and pricing plan of ParseHub-
Multiple Navigation: This platform offers navigation on multiple websites simultaneously which saves time for users by avoiding individual website scraping.
Analysts and Consultants: It has analysts and consultants for analysing useful data for industries, marketing and competition. With the help of advanced tools, it analyses the data and provides accurate market statics for users and better insights into the business.
Custom APIs: It offers custom APIs for web scraping that save users the effort of creating scraping software from scratch. It helps users to customise and then scrape data that they need from any website.
Visualization: ScrapingBee extracts categories and integrates data into Tableau and then puts them into visualization.
Pros and Cons of ParseHub
Pros
- It provides various assistance and solutions for scraping any website
- It has tools for cleaning scraped data and ensures the reliability and accuracy of the extracted data
- It offers scheduled scraping of the data
- It has a user-friendly interface to ensure its smoother functioning
Cons
- It has a limited number of page scraping and one needs to upgrade the plan for more scraping
- For complex data extraction, the user may need some prior technical knowledge
Pricing Plan of ParseHub
- Standard – $189/month
- Professional – $599/month
- ParseHub – Custom/month
Scraper API
It is a powerful web scraping software that offers tool sets and features for receiving data and HTML codes from various websites with the help of API calls.
Headers’ customisation: It allows users to customize HTTP Headers which makes the process of data extraction from websites flexible.
Geotargeting: This feature of ScraperAPI ensures that users can scrape data across the globe. It allows users to set location preferences and then retrieve information from pages available or located in that location.
CAPTCHA Bypassing: One of its features is CAPTCHA Bypassing which helps users to bypass CAPTCHA through API calls and further ensures smoother and uninterrupted data scraping.
Rotating Proxy: It helps users to make new connections to different proxy servers as per requirements and saves time and effort.
Pros and Cons of ScraperAPI
Pros
- Its bots and AI scrape the latest data available on the website for its users as it has the feature of proxy rotation.
- It provides professional support to the users if needed; they have tutorials and solutions posted for different tools and features.
- Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to use even for beginners.
- It is budget-friendly and its plans are pocket friendly as well.
Cons
- It has its limitations while targeting specific geographical locations for scraping.
- If the users don’t use credits available for a month they cannot be transferred to next month.
Pricing Plan of ScraperAPI
For beginners, it provides 5,000 free API credits that are valid for 7 days. Besides free credits, it has 5 different subscription plans based on users’ needs or business type.
Its ‘Hobby’ plan costs $49 per month which provides 100,000 API credits to its users. If the users have start-up, they can opt for the ‘Start Up’ plan which costs $149/ month.
Users can choose a ‘Business’ plan for their business that costs $299 per month which provides 3,000,000 API credits.
It has a ‘Professional ‘ plan too that costs $999 per month and provides more than 10,000,000 API credits. If these plans are still not suitable to user’s need then they can opt for an ‘Enterprise’ plan that can be customised according to their budget and API credit needs.
These 5 Steps Are Involved in Web Scraping
1. It starts fetching the Web Site or Web Pages by sending an HTTP request to the target website’s server to fetch the HTML content of a specific web page.
2. After fetching the HTML data, next step is to parse it to extract the desired data by using libraries These libraries allow you to navigate and manipulate the HTML structure.
3. Next, You have to identify and selecting those HTML elements which you required such as tags, classes, and IDs.
4. Extracting the relevant data such as text, attributes, links, images, or any other information present in the HTML.
5. Once the data is extracted, you can save it to a local file, or a database, or use it for further computations.
FAQs
Web scraping software allows the software to scrape or extract data from any particular website with the help of tools and features provided by them.
The alternates for ScrapingBee can be Scraping API, ParseHub, Oxylabs, Brightdata etc.
Yes, a free trial is available on Scraping API for 7 days.