In-Depth Review of Top 15 Web Scraping Tools & Software

Are you new to web scraping and feeling overwhelmed by the wide variety of web scraping tools available? These tools range from developer-focused libraries to no-code solutions and fully-featured (and expensive) platforms.

This article aims to make your choice of data extraction tool easier by comprehensively reviewing 15 of the best web scraping tools users love. We've categorized them based on use cases to make it easier for you to find the right web scraping software for your needs.

If you don't have time to dive into details, here's a quick comparison:

What Are Web Scraping Tools?

Web scraping tools are programs used to extract data from web pages on a large scale. They help automate the scraping process, allowing you to retrieve data in a format that enables further analysis. Some web scraping tools also provide advanced functionalities like avoiding blocks and bans.

If you'd like to brush up on the basics of web scraping, take a look at these 101 guides:

• What Is Web Scraping and What Is It Used For?
• Web Crawling vs. Web Scraping

Let's get started with the 15 best web scraping tools:

• Web scraping APIs.
• Web scraping software.
• Desktop scraping applications.
• No-code browser scrapers.
• Web scraping libraries.

Web Scraping APIs

Web scraping APIs are lightweight, flexible tools with the most advanced anti-blocking features. They're easy to use, guarantee fast, uninterrupted performance at scale, and balance automation and flexibility.

Here are the top three web scraping APIs.

1. ZenRows: The Complete Web Scraping API

ZenRows scraper API is an all-in-one web scraping solution with top-notch service, making it a powerful toolkit for extracting data at scale. Its scraping API lets you bypass any anti-bot protection system, including even the most advanced ones.

The ZenRows scraper API has JavaScript rendering capabilities to scrape dynamically rendered content. There's also an auto-parsing feature that lets you extract data in easily readable formats. Integrating the ZenRows scraping API is easy, requiring only a single code line in any programming language.

Besides the scraping API, ZenRows provides other solutions to fulfill all your scraping needs. These include a Scraping Browser for bypassing blocks in headless browsers and a dedicated residential proxy service for avoiding IP bans and geo-restrictions. What's intriguing is that all these are available under a unified price.

👍 Pros:

• Easy to use.
• Complete anti-bot bypass, including even the most advanced WAFs.
• Detailed documentation.
• JavaScript rendering for human-like interactivity.
• 24/7 customer support.
• Auto-parsing.
• You only pay for successful requests.
• Premium proxy rotation.
• Flexible geo-targeting.
• Scraper browser for evading blocks in headless browser tools.
• It offers services that fit all scraping needs.

👎 Cons:

• Requires coding knowledge but is easy to integrate.

💰Pricing:

Free trial with 1,000 free URLs. Paid plans start at $69/month.

Use if:

You're a developer with large-scale data scraping needs in any niche and looking for a tool that balances flexibility with automation and provides a complete anti-bot bypass solution.

2. Apify: API for Automating Ready-Made Scrapers

Apify is a popular platform for building low-code and no-code web scraping tasks. Its place on this list is due to its store feature, which gathers 1500+ pre-built scraping APIs or actors. You can use them to collect data across popular sources such as Instagram, Twitter, Google Maps, and others, saving you time devising your solutions from scratch.

The tool features a software development toolkit (SDK) and an API client for interacting with pre-built scrapers using Python and JavaScript. Other Apify features include rotating proxies, an open-source web scraping library, and a CLI.

👍 Pros:

• Rich library of pre-built actors.
• Big community support.
• Ease of integration.
• No-code integrations.
• Storage dashboard for collected datasets.
• Scraping job scheduler.

👎 Cons:

• Hidden costs (most features are charged separately per usage, so scaling up may be costly).
• It only supports Python and JavaScript.

💰Pricing:

Apify's free plan offers $5 in platform credits. Paid options start at $49/month.

Use if:

You want to save time by using ready-made, low-code solutions.

3. Oxylabs: Get Existing Data from Popular Sources

Oxylabs is a data collection platform with a scraping API solution. Its dataset marketplace sets it apart, offering ready-to-use data from popular sources such as job boards and e-commerce websites. Its scraper API features JavaScript rendering and CAPTCHA bypass.

If you need assistance building your scraper, Oxylabs offers an AI-powered assistant to parse specific websites based on chat prompts. It also provides dedicated scraper APIs, such as SERP and e-commerce parsers, and offers a premium proxy service at a different price cap.

👍 Pros

• Dataset marketplace.
• CAPTCHA bypass feature.
• AI-powered scraper assistant.
• Dedicated scrapers.
• 24/7 customer support.
• Proxy services are available.

👎 Cons

• Each service falls under a different price tag.
• It charges for failed requests.
• It can be expensive at scale.

💰 Pricing:

It starts at $49/month (a 7-day free trial is available). There are no free request retries.

Use if:

You need to bypass CAPTCHAs or need dedicated scraper APIs or existing datasets.

Web Scraping Software

The web scraping software category includes tools with complete no-code solutions that support native integrations. This no-code support makes them a good choice for professionals without programming knowledge. It's important to note here that some tools offer fewer customization options. That's because they are primarily designed for non-developers.

Let's review some of the best web scraping software out there.

4. Octoparse: No-code Data Extraction Software

Octoparse is a cloud-based, no-code web scraping platform that is available as a web and desktop application. It promises full process automation, anti-bot bypass, and customizable workflows supported by AI.

The software is an excellent example of a "hands-off" scraper that doesn't require a developer to set up. It offers many ready-made scraping templates, point-and-click UI, and automated alerts and reports.

👍 Pros:

• Ease of use.
• Anti-bot bypass.
• Rotating proxies, AJAX handling.
• Pre-made templates.
• Desktop application available.
• Good customer support.

👎 Cons:

• Limited customizability (since you can't access code, you can only do what the UI allows).
• It can be expensive.
• Team collaboration is only available for professional plans and above.

💰Pricing:

Octoparse offers a premium trialist tier and an unlimited free account, which allows only ten tasks and two concurrent runs. Paid subscriptions start at $99/month.

Use if:

You're looking for complete, readily available scraping software and don't have coding knowledge, especially if you're an e-commerce or marketing specialist (the tool offers ready templates for these use cases).

5. Import.io: Scraper for E-commerce

Import.io is another example of no-code web scraping software. It caters specifically to e-commerce businesses, providing exceptional marketing intelligence services.

The point-and-click, no-code solution allows users to crawl and scrape multiple websites with complete anti-bot bypass and automatic scheduling. The platform also provides managed intelligence-gathering services for enterprises.

👍 Pros:

• E-commerce oriented.
• Complete no-code solution.
• Integrations with data analytics software and BI tools.
• Automatic scraping scheduling.
• AI-assisted web crawling.
• 24/7 customer support.

👎 Cons:

• Costly.
• The subscription policy doesn't allow idle periods.
• Limited customizability.

💰 Pricing:

Subscription plans start at $399/month.

Use if:

You're a market researcher or sales specialist in an enterprise-level company looking for a complete solution with AI-assisted scraping.

6. Diffbot: From Web Content to Structured Data

Diffbot is an API that builds databases out of Internet content. It uses NLP (Natural Language Processing) and computer vision to automate information gathering and cleaning. Diffbot handles data extraction and site crawling, offering an extensive pre-existing knowledge graph to connect the dots in scraped data.

The platform is handy for price monitoring, market research, and sentiment analysis. Unlike traditional web scraping software, Diffbot handles all the scraping under the hood, allowing users to get data in database-ready formats, such as JSON.

👍 Pros:

• Automatically transforms scraped information into structured data.
• Easy-to-use no-code solution.
• AI-enhanced web crawling.
• Extensive knowledge gap.

👎 Cons:

• Costly.
• Limited flexibility---highly database-oriented.
• Bulk extraction and web crawling are limited to plus and enterprise plans.

💰Pricing:

Diffbot offers a free plan with limited options. Paid plans start at $299/month.

Use if:

You're part of a research or commercial organizational team with no coding experience, looking to enhance your dataset with a pre-existing knowledge graph.

Desktop Scraping Applications

Desktop applications are installed locally on your computer. They're often free or require a one-time license purchase only. While they may have some limitations in scalability for larger projects, they can still be a great choice for many users. 

Here are the top desktop web scraping software.

7. ParseHub: Desktop Tool to Try for Free

ParseHub is a web scraping desktop app with a free version available. This simple solution lets you extract data from multiple pages and access it via JSON or Excel. You also get webhooks and JavaScript site scraping capabilities.

ParseHub is handy for teams with small scraping needs, but the more advanced anti-block features, such as rotating IPs, are only available in the premium paid plans.

👍 Pros:

• Scrapes AJAX and JavaScript pages.
• Data downloads for JSON and Excel formats.
• Downloadable app for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

👎 Cons:

• The free scraping capacity is minimal.
• Expensive paid plans.
• The custom scraper setup is complicated.

💰Pricing:

ParseHub gives you 200 pages of data per run for five projects for free. Subscription plans start at $189/month.

Use if:

You want to test a no-code desktop app and don't need large amounts of data.

8. Screaming Frog: Ultimate SEO Companion

No SEO professional needs an introduction to Screaming Frog, the website crawler for technical SEO audits. The platform efficiently crawls even the biggest websites (including JavaScript-rendered ones).

It allows for real-time result analysis, highlighting common SEO issues such as duplicate pages, broken links, or redirects. It also offers XPath data extraction, sitemap generation, and site architecture visualization.

👍Pros:

• Powerful free version.
• Comprehensive SEO audit.
• Suitable for quickly generating sitemaps.
• Easy to use for non-developers.

👎Cons:

• Use case specific.
• Limited customizability.

💰Pricing:

Screaming Frog's unlimited free version offers most of the tool's powerful features. The license for the paid version costs $259/year.

Use if:

You're an SEO professional who needs a reliable tool for exhaustive data audits.

No-code Browser Scrapers

No-code scrapers are usually lighter versions of professional software and APIs you can install as a browser extension. They're easy to use and often free, but their functionalities and scraping power are limited.

Below are some of the best options available.

9. Instant Data Scraper: Completely Free Chrome Extension

Instant Data Scraper is a Chrome extension that packs quite a punch for an entirely free tool: it allows you to extract and then save data, handles dynamic content, and offers delay and maximum wait time customization.

The extension has a scriptless approach. It lets AI detect the data for scraping, and the user can customize the selections if greater accuracy is needed. Web Robots, the company behind Instant Data Scraper, offers fully managed web scraping services and an IDE for writing JavaScript robots.

👍 Pros:

• Completely free.
• Automated scraping with some customization.
• CSV data exports.
• Easy to use.

👎 Cons:

• It doesn't work against advanced anti-bot measures.
• Inefficient for large-scale scraping.

💰 Pricing:

Free.

Use if:

You want an AI-powered, automation-friendly browser solution for a small-scale scraping project.

10. Webscraper.io: Browser-Based Handy Scraper

Webscraper.io is one of the most popular Chrome (and Firefox) extensions for web scraping. It's a no-code solution that allows dynamic data extraction in popular formats, including JSON, CSV, and XLSX. If you have more extensive scraping needs, the company also offers cloud-based software, which provides proxies, automatic data parsing, and a scraping scheduler.

👍 Pros:

• Easy to use.
• It runs on the browser and doesn't require additional software installation.
• Free.
• Extracts data in popular formats, such as JSON, CSV, and XLSX.
• Scraping scheduler available.

👎Cons:

• The browser extension can't handle large-scale scraping.
• Limited customizability.

💰Pricing:

The browser extension is free. Paid plans for the cloud solution start at $50/month.

Use if:

You're looking for a light, no-code scraping solution with a top-notch scheduling feature and don't have complex scraping needs.

11. Data Miner: Powerful Automation Inside the Browser

Data Miner is an extension for data scraping and crawling that works for Chrome and Edge. It allows for automated scraping of single or multiple pages. It handles pagination, dynamic content, and form submission. Additionally, it enables you to set extraction rules for easier subsequent scraping of similar pages.

👍 Pros:

• A no-code solution.
• Browser-based, no additional software required.
• Simple automation that streamlines scraping workflow.
• Scraping rules for subsequent usage.

👎Cons:

• It gets pricey at scale.
• Limited customizability.

💰Pricing:

Data Miner offers a free version with limited features. Paid tiers start at $19.99/month.

Use if:

You're looking for a browser-based solution offering simple automation and multiple-page-scraping capabilities, but you don't need to scrape heavily protected websites.

Web Scraping Libraries and Frameworks

Web scraping libraries are open-source tools that allow you to build your own scraper from the ground up, offering integration with specific programming languages. They're flexible and often free but require coding knowledge. We've reviewed the top ones below.

12. Scrapy: A Popular Scraping Framework for Python

Scrapy is an open-source library for web scraping in Python. It's one of the most popular frameworks for the most widely used web scraping language. So, you can expect an active developer community around it. One of its key strengths is asynchronous loading, allowing you to scrape many pages simultaneously.

Scrapy works with Splash for JavaScript rendering support. It has a rich collection of built-in web scraping solutions, including proxy middleware, caching plugins, and more. However, it requires Python expertise, and bypassing website protection systems requires a more complex setup.

👍 Pros:

• Open-source library.
• Fast scraping of significant data volume.
• Export in different formats (JSON, CS JSON, CSV, and XLSXV, XML).
• Extensive middleware and plugin support.
• It works with Splash for JavaScript rendering.

👎 Cons:

• It can't handle JavaScript on its own.
• No anti-bot bypass capabilities.
• Requires coding expertise.

💰 Pricing:

Free and open-source.

Use if:

You're a Python developer doing large-scale data scraping, and you'd like to try a free solution with built-in web scraping capabilities.

13. Playwright: Popular Cross-Browser Automation Tool

Playwright is an open-source browser automation library that lets you control popular browsers during scraping, including Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. Its ability to control the browser is handy for executing user interactions and loading dynamic content during scraping. Playwright stands out for its powerful built-in debugging tool, which allows you to record automation steps during scraping.

The library supports Python, JavaScript, Java, TypeScript and .NET. Playwright has anti-bot evasion plugins, such as Playwright Stealth, to hide detectable bot-like parameters. Although Stealth plugins are often insufficient against complex anti-bots, Playwright fully supports the ZenRows Scraping Browser, a one-liner solution, to bypass anti-bot measures.

👍 Pros

• Support for anti-bot bypass tools.
• Suitable for scraping dynamic content.
• Browser automation for user interaction.
• Completely free.
• Powerful debugging feature.

👎 Cons

• Steep learning curve.
• Managing browser instances can be memory-demanding.

💰 Pricing

Playwright is entirely free.

Use if

You're a developer looking to scrape a JavaScript-heavy website requiring complex user interactions or device emulation.

14. Puppeteer: Powerful JavaScript Browser Automation Library

Puppeteer is another automation library for web scraping and testing. Officially, it's limited to JavaScript but supported in Python via an unofficial port called Pyppeteer. The library lets you automate user interactions in two major browsers: Chrome and Firefox. Like Playwright, Puppeteer enables you to access dynamically rendered content easily.

Puppeteer supports patched solutions, such as the Puppeteer Stealth plugin, to avoid anti-bot detection. However, if dealing with anti-bot measures at scale, you can easily integrate your Puppeteer scraper with the Scraping Browser, which fortifies it with advanced evasions to significantly increase your chances of bypassing anti-bots.

👍 Pros

• Works well with anti-bot bypass solutions.
• Suitable for scraping dynamic content.
• User interaction automating.
• It's free.

👎 Cons

• Limited to JavaScript.
• It requires JavaScript coding knowledge.

💰 Pricing

Puppeteer is free.

Use if:

You're a JavaScript developer who wants a powerful and flexible browser automation tool to scrape JavaScript-rendered websites. 

Do you need help deciding which to choose between Playwright and Puppeteer? Check out our article on Playwright vs. Puppeteer.

15. Pyspider: Python Web Crawler With Web UI

Pyspider is a Python web crawling framework that lets you manage scraping tasks via a web-based user interface or the CLI. It natively supports JavaScript rendering via PhantomJS, a discontinued headless browser.

The framework also supports extra features, including request retries, recrawl, periodic scraping, etc. It supports connecting to open-source databases, such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, and more.

👍 Pros:

• Free and open-source.
• Web-based UI.
• Suitable for real-time crawl monitoring
• Flexibility to customize scraping logic.

👎 Cons:

• Steep learning curve.
• No in-built anti-bot bypass system.
• Its community isn't as active as alternatives like Scrapy.

💰 Pricing:

Free and open-source.

Use if:

You're a Python developer who prefers monitoring scraping activities via a web-based UI.

Although we've mentioned four popular frameworks and libraries based on Python and JavaScript, you can find equivalents for every language. Check out our guides:

• 7 Best Python Web Scraping Libraries.
• Top 5 JavaScript and NodeJS Web Scraping Libraries.
• 10 Best PHP Web Scraping Libraries.
• 7 Best C# Web Scraping Libraries.

Conclusion

Now that you've reviewed the list of the best web scraping tools in four popular categories, you're one step closer to making the choice! As usual, it's best to test the tools out on your own with free versions or trials. 

Remember to plan ahead: free solutions may be a good idea initially, but they won't let you efficiently scale or perform web scraping without downtime. You're bound to get blocked by anti-bot protection systems in no time.

If you're ready to start testing now, jump to ZenRows' free trial. Test the tool on hard-to-scrape webpages, such as the Cloudflare challenge page and see how ZenRows effectively bypasses the CAPTCHA.

Good luck with your next project!