ZenRows vs SerpAPI – Top Differences
| ZenRows | SerpAPI | |
|---|---|---|
|
Reach
|
All websites | Limited to search engines |
|
Cost per Page
|
$0.28 per 1,000 requests | $15 per 1,000 searches |
|
Geolocation
|
185+ countries | 69 countries and 500+ cities |
|
Speed (Concurrency)
|
Fast (10 pages to unlimited) | Slow (1 page) |
|
Structured Data
|
JSON for popular sites | JSON for selected sites |
“We power it all with ZenRows. It’s the most cost-effective and reliable data enrichment tool on the market.”
1. ZenRows
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0
ZenRows makes search engine scraping effortless. Packed with advanced anti-bot bypass and vast geo-targeting capabilities, it gets all the data you need with a single API call. While SerpAPI limits you to just search results, ZenRows lets you extract data from any webpage without getting blocked.
Getting started is straightforward. Let's see how it works against an anti-bot challenge demo page, a web page protected by an anti-bot.
Start by signing up for a new account, and you'll get to the Request Builder page.
There, paste your target URL, and activate premium proxies and JS rendering.
Select your programming language (Python, in this case) and choose the API connection mode. Then, copy and paste the generated code into your scraper file.
Here's what the generated Python code looks like:
# pip install requests
import requests
url = "https://www.scrapingcourse.com/antibot-challenge"
apikey = "<YOUR_ZENROWS_API_KEY>"
params = {
"url": url,
"apikey": apikey,
"js_render": "true",
"premium_proxy": "true",
}
response = requests.get("https://api.zenrows.com/v1/", params=params)
print(response.text)
The above code outputs the protected site's full-page HTML, showing that it bypassed the anti-bot measure:
<html lang="en">
<head>
<!-- ... -->
<title>Antibot Challenge - ScrapingCourse.com</title>
<!-- ... -->
</head>
<body>
<!-- ... -->
<h2>
You bypassed the Antibot challenge! :D
</h2>
<!-- other content omitted for brevity -->
</body>
</html>
Congratulations 🎉! You bypassed anti-bot protection using ZenRows.
2. Bright Data
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.7
While SerpAPI focuses exclusively on search engine results, Bright Data offers a comprehensive data collection platform with SERP scraping capabilities. Their large proxy network enables global search coverage, but users often face challenges with complex implementation and high costs.
Pros:
✅ Largest proxy network available
✅ Pre-collected datasets
✅ Scraping browser
Cons:
❌ Low success rate
❌ Expensive
❌ Steep learning curve for developers
3. Oxylabs
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.5
Oxylabs offers dedicated SERP scraping APIs with a focus on enterprise clients. While they provide good coverage for various search engines, their pricing exceeds SerpAPI's rates, and users often report difficulties with their technical support response times.
Pros:
✅ Comprehensive proxy network
✅ ML-driven Scraper APIs
✅ Readily available datasets
Cons:
❌ Expensive
❌ Slow customer support
4. ScraperAPI
⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.3
ScraperAPI provides basic search engine scraping capabilities with a straightforward approach. While they offer search engine data extraction at competitive rates starting at $49/month, their service lacks advanced SERP features and struggles with region-specific results compared to other SerpAPI alternatives.
Pros:
✅ Automatic proxy rotation
✅ Competitive pricing
Cons:
❌ Basic anti-bot protection
❌ Less sophisticated proxy selection