APIs for web scraping are trendy automation software tools covering more and more of the market for scraping instruments. They provide all the necessary features, most often including proxy support and management to avoid IP bans that often occur when any bigger attempt to scrape the web is being identified.
Finding the best tool on the market might be challenging. After all, you need the speed and the security in one batch. You don’t want to use a dozen different tools to fulfill all your job’s requirements.
Well, you don’t need to look anywhere else if you wish to find the best tool. We will consider the top web scrapings APIs and what alternatives that come free of charge you could find to improve your scraping.
1. Web Scraper API
Oxylabs’ Web Scraper API is an advanced tool for gathering public data from the most challenging sources. It allows you to change the scale of your project whenever required quickly, and you won’t encounter any issues. It can extract data from most websites regardless of how well their anti-scraping defense systems work. The results are produced in HTML format.
Web Scraper API renders JavaScript for the most complex targets and can get you where lesser advanced tools could not work.
It has excellent proxy support. With a large pool and rotating proxies integrated, it can disguise itself to the point that any IP bans for using automation software become merely a concern of the past. Likewise, geo-targeting will work beyond any limitations.
Another cool feature of this tool is handling CAPTCHAs so that you would not need to stop from time to time to fill in those tests that might cost you valuable time.
2. Mozenda
Mozenda is another tool for scraping at a large scale. It is known for good geo-targeting and simultaneous processing that translates into a better speed. With this tool, you can control data collection and agents.
This API can scrape text, files, images, and PDF content from webpages with just a few clicks.
It offers both cloud-based and on-premises solutions for web scraping. Data can be collected and transferred to any selected databases or business intelligence tools. Mozenda provides a service that converts your unstructured and semi-structured data into highly structured data in a fully indexed catalog format compatible with any data application.
3. Diffbot
Diffbot can also extract data on a large scale. The main advantage of this API is its ability to read like a human through various types of information and then transform it into usable data.
With the help of a structured search, you can see only the matching results.
A page can be classified into one of 20 possible types. It is later interpreted by a machine learning model that allows identifying the critical attributes on a page based on its type.
Diffbot can quickly turn any site into a structured database of products, articles, and discussions. The results are provided as structured data that you will only need to analyze and use for your purposes.
4. ScrapingBee
ScrapingBee handles headless browsers to save your computer power and rotates proxies to make any scraping untraceable and block-free while bypassing IP-based restrictions, including any kind of geo-limitations.
It also renders JavaScript with a simple parameter to make any website susceptible to being scraped. Hence, you will not need to worry about any data that might slip through. This tool resolves CAPTCHAs, making those obstacles that are sent to slow your work down irrelevant.
ScrapingBee can provide formatted JSON data. Their easy-to-use extraction rules allow you to get just the data you need with one simple API call.
This tool can scrape search engine result pages, check backlinks, and monitor keywords.
5. ScraperAPI
Scraper API gathers data on a vast scale and keeps its activity masked. It works with rotating residential proxies and solves CAPTCHAs, thus making your scraping invincible to any kind of geo-restriction, an IP ban, or a test for your bot to struggle.
The tool gives you a clear result in HTML response format from any website, including those with the most challenging JavaScript.
It automatically prunes slow proxies from their IP pools and guarantees unlimited bandwidth, relieving you of caring about the safety and speed on which the success of your scraping mostly depends.
Some free alternatives
Scrapy
Scrapy is an open-source and collaborative framework for fast high-level web crawling and web scraping that can be used to extract structured data from websites. It is written in Python. This tool can be used not only to mine data but also for monitoring and automated testing. You just need to write the rules to extract the data, and Scrapy will do the rest.
ParseHub
That is a free web scraper that can extract data from the most complex sites. It collects and stores data from any JavaScript and AJAX page by using machine learning technology that allows extracting relevant data from any page in minutes without working with complex codes. It’s a cloud-based tool with integrated IP rotation and lets you download the data in any format you want, thus providing the necessary comfort and safety.
Apify
This web scraper crawls websites using the Chrome browser and extracts structured data from pages by using a few lines from a provided JavaScript code. It can either be configured to run manually in a user interface or programmatically to use the API. You can schedule your tasks and save large volumes of data in special storage from where it can be exported to various formats, such as JSON, XML, or CSV.
Wrapping up Web scraping APIs are the best tools for data mining on a large scale. Free alternatives can be used here and there; however, if you are really into scraping and want to make your business grow at unprecedented speed, you should check the best APIs on the market that you can find. We hope that our list of the top APIs will be helpful for you in doing that.
