Web scraping can be EASY. Don’t believe me? Then take a look at our favorite codeless scrapers,
scraping APIs, and libraries. Various tools for different levels of coding
experience - let’s see which one is right for you.
Let’s start with no-code scrapers. Those require zero coding knowledge,
and consist of pre-made or user-built scraping templates, where you can visually extract data.
They’re extremely easy to use for complete beginners or those who want to save time.
Speaking of beginner-friendly options, ParseHub is a great pick. It's a desktop
app with a visual mouse-based interface. But don't be tricked by the tool's simplicity.
It still provides advanced features like scheduling, scraping interactive websites,
cross-page navigation, and more. Gathered data is saved in ParseHub's cloud server,
and you can export it in JSON, CSV, or Excel formats to Google Drive or Tableau.
If you haven’t used a codeless scraper before, ParseHub has extensive documentation,
video tutorials, and even web scraping courses. You can use a free version
with limited functionality - that means, no IP rotation, and restricted amount of scraped data.
A paid subscription unlocks more features, but it gets pricey quite quickly. In fact,
ParseHub is the most expensive no-code scraper on the list.
Otherwise, you can always consider Apify. The provider’s no-code scraper can fetch
data from various websites, including social media platforms like Twitter
or TikTok and eCommerce sites. You can choose from a thousand so-called actors,
mark the data you need and specify how you want to receive it. With multiple delivery options,
and a scheduler feature, you can get data in the desired format and frequency.
If you need some specific features, it’s possible to write and adjust the code via
an API. But nothing comes for free. In fact, Apify has only two paid options:
personal and team. While the individual plan is limited features-wise,
the team subscription is too expensive for single users who need to scrape bulk data.
So here, the best price-per-value choice comes to the rescue. It’s Smartproxy's No-Code scraper. The
tool gathers data in two ways: using pre-made templates via the dashboard or through a Chrome
extension. The first option offers templates for Amazon and Google search, where you can
enter desired parameters, like a search query and location, and No-Code Scraper retrieves structured
data. The extension allows making new templates by visually selecting elements in a browser window.
No-Code Scraper has all the essentials like IP rotation,
scheduling, various delivery options, cloud storage. If you can go without these features,
a free version lets you use the extension with your own IP address. Besides that,
the scraper lacks some advanced functionality, like navigating between multiple pages or entering
data. But considering how much functionality you get at $50 per month, we can’t really complain.
Now, onto web scraping APIs. Here, you need some coding skills. Mostly,
to configure the API’s parameters and send requests. But differently from libraries,
Scraping API services include proxy management, anti-detection mechanisms, and sometimes,
data parsing features. So devs often opt for ready-made tools to save time on web-unlocking.
And one of the feature-packed services belongs to Oxylabs. The provider offers four
web scraping tools: Web, SERP, Real Estate, and E-Commerce Scraper APIs. In addition to
bundling proxies and anti-detection perks, all four APIs allow you to target countries,
while eCommerce and SERP scrapers also filter by coordinates within 195 countries. Some other
handy features include dynamic content scraping, crawling, and a scheduler.
Oxylabs APIs can parse data from major search engines, e-commerce stores,
and real estate websites. Additionally to the parsed JSON, APIs also allow getting data in CSV,
but mainly for Google search results. So you’ll have to take care of parsing yourself for other
platforms. The pricing isn’t ideal. Even though it’s based on successful requests,
the plans are costly with a high entry point.
Yup, the price is often a deal-breaker. But Smartproxy again saves the day with the best
value for quality. You can choose between four APIs, that is Web, eCommerce, SERP,
and Social Media scraping tools. The scrapers are based on Smartproxy’s proxy network,
so you can target any country or city from the provider’s pool. Web Scraping
API returns a page’s HTML, while the other scrapers can structure results in JSON.
What’s more, all Smartproxy’s APIs support JavaScript rendering and proxy rotation. But
you won’t be able to schedule your tasks. In addition, the prices can seem a bit over the
top for a casual user, but compared to premium providers, they’re much more affordable. I’d say,
$50 for starting plans offers a good compromise between price and value.
If flexibility is your top priority, we suggest ScraperAPI’s services. The tool supports multiple
programming languages, including Bash, NodeJS, Python, PHP, Ruby, and Java. The scraper also
automatically handles IP rotation, and retries requests to reach a 100% success rate. Plus,
you can adjust headers, establish sessions, and even script some headless browser actions. Though,
parsing is only available for several websites, namely Google and Amazon.
ScraperAPI supports country-level filtering and targets 12 locations across the US and EU. The
pricing isn’t straightforward: the tool uses a credit-based system where advanced
features like premium proxies or JavaScript rendering cost multiple credits. The cost
is dictated by the websites you target, the number of requests, and enabled parameters.
If you wanna save the buck, why not build your scraper with free scraping libraries? Of course,
you'll have to maintain your tool and buy proxies to avoid web-blocking,
but it’s possible. You can watch our ‘Best Residential Proxies’ video for
provider recommendations, but now let’s continue with the libraries.
First, there's Requests, a standalone Python library that uses HTTP requests to retrieve
data from any URL. The library can fetch and interpret JSON and supports the most common
HTTP request methods like GET and POST. It also comes loaded with a bunch of nifty features,
like SSL verification, connection timeouts, proxy integration, cookie jar and custom header support.
In terms of data parsing, Requests library is frequently used with other packages,
such as Beautiful Soup. Even so, Requests doesn't support JavaScript rendering. So to
target dynamic websites like social media, use a headless browser such as Selenium.
In fact, Selenium is ideal for scraping dynamic pages. You can run it as a headless
browser in the background and avoid dealing with JavaScript asynchronous loading. Plus,
Selenium lets you view and interact with websites, fill in forms, log in, click on buttons, and more
It supports various programming languages, including Java, Ruby,
and C#, and major browsers like Firefox and Chrome. Selenium also stores cookies,
so websites won't be able to tell you're scraping them. But there's a catch:
this scraping library consumes much CPU power, so your scraper slows down significantly.
And then there’s Beautiful Soup – a Python library for scraping HTML and XML websites.
Two of the library's strongest features are flexibility and speediness. And the
reason is simple - Beautiful Soup has three built-in parsers and is light on resources.
It also handles broken HTML pages by automatically detecting page encoding.
So even if the website you're targeting is a hot mess, you'll still get okay results.
One of the flaws is that Beautiful Soup can't crawl pages or execute
GET requests independently. To use Beautiful Soup with your web scraper,
you must install an HTTP client, like the Requests library.
Price-wise, scraping libraries are tempting, ‘cause they don't cost
anything. But scraping APIs and no-code scrapers also have free plans or trials,
plus they save time and have a shallow learning curve.
So if you're unsure whether the product's right for you,
sign up for free trials with the links in the description. I'll see you in another video.