Top 10 Best Data Scrapers: Streamline Your Data Collection Process

Justin Shin

Are you looking for the best data scraping tool in the market to sharpen and make your data collection workflow a lot easier? Then you are on the right page as I will be recommending some of the best data scrapers in the market for you.

Table Of Contents

Overview of Best Data Scrapers

Top 10 Best Data Scrapers

Here's a comparison table of the top 10 web scraping tools:

No. Data Scraper Unique Feature Suit for
1 Nimbleway Overall best data scraper Small to large businesses
2 Bright Data Best web scraper for non-coders Developers and data analysts
3 Smartproxy Best modular web scraping API Businesses with little coding expertise 
4 Apify Huge collection of data scrapers for specific sites Businesses with specific website scraping needs
5 ScrapingBee Best web scraping API with extraction support Developers and businesses scraping multiple websites
6 Shifter Data scraping API with customizable API Developers and businesses with specific scraping requirements
7 ScraperAPI Most effective scraping API Developers and businesses with large-scale scraping needs
8 Agenty Advanced no-code scraping tool Businesses and data analysts without coding expertise
9 Octoparse Easy-to-use no-code data scraper Businesses and individuals without coding expertise
10 Zyte All-encompassing data scraper Large-scale web scraping and data extraction projects

Data, they say, is the new oil, and the Internet is a major source of it. But this saying will mean nothing to you if you have the wrong tool. Generally, it has been agreed that it is impossible to collect data manually. Web data collection at any reasonable scale should be done with an automated web data collection tool. But the specific web scraper you use will determine how easy and cheap data collection becomes for you.

We have reviewed all of the data scrapers in the market and, as such, know the data scrapers that work. In this article, we will reveal to you some of the best data scrapers you can use to collect data at any scale.

Some of the web scrapers require coding, while others require no coding. This means regardless of your coder's status, our list of data scrapers has got you covered. Before moving into the list, you need to know that data scrapers will cost you money, and as such, looking for free data scrapers is limiting you to tools that will limit you.

1. Nimbleway — Overall Best Data Scraper

The Nimble data service is arguably the best data scraper in the market. This service was built from the ground up from the beginning to serve as a data scraper — not adapted along the way. And the result of this is an effective and efficient web scraping tool. In fact, the “Nimble Way” of collecting web data will get you fresh and real-time data you are sure of its correctness.

It provides 3 tools that all combine to make web data extraction a breeze — Nimble API, Nimble Browser, and Nimble IP. The Nimble API is a web scraping where you put zero effort towards collecting web data. All you do is send a simple web request, and it returns a response to you; no dealing with blocks, proxies, captchas, and browsers, as it takes care of all these for you.

If you do not need this, you can use their automation browser, which is much more than the regular Selenium and Puppeteer. This is known as Nimble Browser. The Nimble IP is a modern proxy network with intelligence support, helping to choose the best IP for each specific web request you make.

2. Bright Data — Best Web Scraper for Non-Coder

Bright Data is another data scraper worthy of being mentioned. In fact, if you are a non-coder and do not even have technical knowledge all together, you are better off making use of Bright Data. This is because it can help you convert a website into structured data without writing a single line of code. It has got the best and most robust proxy network in the market.

Using this and its high-performance web scrapers, you have a worthy tool at hand. Bright Data provides a tool known as Data Collector that provides you with modular data scrapers for specific websites. For this, you do not need to. Install any tool, as all of the workflow is done online.

Aside from providing you no-code scraping tool, this service also provides you with an already-prepared dataset for your business need. If you are a coder, you are not left out, as Bright Data provide the Web Scraper IDE to help you build a scalable data scraper.

3. Smartproxy — Best Modular Web Scraping API

Smartproxy can be said to be in the same class as Bright Data and different from Nimbleway. This is because they were not built from the beginning to be web scrapers. They started as a proxy network before adding data scraping as a core service.

Currently, Smartproxy is now one of the best data scrapers in the market. It basically offers a no-code scraping tool and web scraping APIs. The no-code scraping tool will provide you with a point-and-click interface to select and train the scraping, and this is best for non-coders. For coders, Smartproxy provides you with web scraping APIs and specialized APIs for scraping structured data from popular websites.

Smartproxy offers scraper API for e-commerce, social media, SERP scraping API, and a general-purpose scraping API for all websites. But for this, you will have to deal with parsing out the required data. The pricing for the Smartproxy web scraping APIs is affordable and competitive.

4. Apify — Huge Collection of Data Scrapers for Specific Websites

The Apify service is a web scraping and automation platform. Generally speaking, you need to be a developer to make use of their platform even though it is posse blue to use it as a non-coder. Apify provides already-made scrapers for specific websites and use cases. For example, if you need a web scraper to scrape Twitter profile details, the service has got it in its collection of web scraping libraries.

Some of the web scrapers in the library were developed and maintained by their in-house team members, while others were developed by third-party developers. You can get web scrapers for different websites ranging from Search Engines to e-commerce, real estate, social media, and holiday booking websites, among others. Apify does not just provide you with data scrapers; it also provides you with specialized data storage for storing scraped data. This service also provides a proxy network that is meant to reduce your proxy cost for web scraping.

5. ScrapingBee — Best Web Scraping API with Extraction Support

I described Smartproxy above as the best web scraping API — but that is for known specific site targets. If you are looking for a web scraping API that is robust and can be used for scraping all kinds of websites, then ScrapingBee is the best for you. This data scraper is for developers and comes with support for handling proxies, captchas, blocks, and Javascript rendering, so you do not have to.

All you need to do is send a simple API request, and you get the HTML of a page as a response.  Interestingly, if you make use of its client library, you can use its extraction support. This makes it possible for you to parse data out of the HTML document with CSS selectors done on their server. This makes it more versatile and robust than Smartproxy.

It also does offer a Google SERP API and can be integrated with popular services like Google Sheets and Zapier. Pricing is based on successful requests, and the price per request is determined by your settings — type of proxies, site target, and Javascript rendering option.

6. Shifter — Data Scraping API with Customisable API

The Shifter service is another proxy service that has added data scraping to its service, and like the others, it is a highly performant proxy network. The data scraping service added is a web scraping API meant for developers. With this, you only need to send a simple API and get back the page content as a response.

Interestingly, Shifter also does offer SDKs for popular programming languages that allow you to enjoy using the advanced features provided by Shifter web scraping API. The programming languages supported include Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, and Rust.

One of the powers and advanced features you get from using Shifter is customization. With this, you can customize headers, choose geolocation, and even add cookies, among others. This scraping API is fast and does have support for rendering Javascript. There is enough API documentation and a guide to help you with all the details you need to set up.

7. ScraperAPI — Most Effective Scraping API

Smartproxy, ScrapingBee, and Shifter described above are all web scraping APIs. In some aspects, you can say one of the aforementioned web scraping APIs is the best. But when it comes down to being effective at evading blocks, then ScraperAPI is the best with no extra customization. I carried out a performance test some time ago, and ScraperAPI best extremely well.

It was able to access popular sites protected by anti-bot systems like Cloudflare, Datadome, and Perimeter X. Using this tool, you can scrape more pages for less since you will not have to toggle the advanced features that will cost you more API credit, like the other ones mentioned. Generally, the pricing for ScraperAPI can be said to be affordable, considering the performance you get.

However, there is a major problem with this tool — you do not get parsing support except for Google SERP, Google Shopping, and Amazon. For other websites, parsing is completely left to you.

8. Agenty — Advanced No Code Scraping Tool

The Agenty scraping tool is a Chrome extension you can use for collecting data from the web. This service comes with a scraping agent, a change detection agent, a sentiment analysis agent, and a machine translation agent. For this article, our focus is on their scraping and change detection agent.

While the scraping agent will scrape data from the Internet for you, the change detection agent will monitor the value of a particular endpoint online and notify you if a change is detected. The tool is basically what you will refer to as a point-and-click interfaced web scraper. Training the scraper to collect data is a matter of using the in-browser tool to navigate a page and identify the data of interest.

Some of the advanced features Agenty has includes support for scheduled scraping, anonymous scraping via IP rotation, geo-targeted content scraping, scraping data behind logins, and even crawling history, among others. You can send scraped data to Dropbox, Google Sheets, Amazon S3, and Webhook.

9. Octoparse — Easy to Use No-Code Data Scraper

If you are not a coder and all you need is a simple web scraper you can use to collect data from the Internet, then Octoparse is one of the options available to you. This scraping tool has an intuitive User Interface that even a beginner will understand. Using it, you can convert any website into a spreadsheet of data you are interested in. It is a no-code scraper that does not require you to write a single line of code.

It presents you with an in-browser that serves as the point-and-click interface for training the bot. Unlike the other tools mentioned above, you wouldn’t be installing a standalone application in other to access them; you will need to install the Octoparse app on your computer in other to make use of it.

This tool is super fast and does have support for disabling unnecessary resources from loading to enable faster scraping. This is the perfect no-code scraper for scrapping all kinds of pages, including Javascript-heavy pages and data behind logins.

10. Zyte (Scrapinghub) — All-encompassing Data Scraper

Formerly known as Scrapinghub, Zyte is arguably one of the oldest data scraping companies in the market. This company is known for its Scrapy framework, the Python scraping/crawling framework. But Scrapy is just one of its tools, and it is even free with a good junk of the work still left to you. It has got an Automatic Extraction API which is an AI-powered scraper for automatically extracting data from HTML documents into a structured format.

It does have support for scraping search engine data, product data, news and articles, social media data, job listing, real estate data, and business listing data, among others. Other tools provided by Zyte include Scrapy Cloud for hosting scrapers, the Zyte API as a web scraping API, and Zyte Enterprise, which is an enterprise-level anti-bot and proxy solution, among others.

FAQs

Q. Can Data be Scrapped Manually?

Data can be scrapped without making use of any automation tool like a data scraper. But the keyword to watch out for here is can, and that you can do not mean you should. The manual process of copying data online is time-wasting, error-prone, repetitive, and boring. In some instances, depending on how large the dataset to be collected is, it can even be impossible. With a data scraper, you are able to scrape data from thousands of pages in minutes — the chances of error getting introduced is also slimmer. Also, unlike in the past, you require no coding knowledge to scrape data making it more accessible.

Q. Do I Need Proxies to Scrape Data Online?

Proxies are a must in the web scraping workflow as they help one scrape data anonymously by switching IP addresses randomly to hide your IP footprint. But in some cases, the data scraper will handle that for you, so you do not have to deal with it. If you choose any of the web scraping APIs mentioned above or the Bright Data service, you will not have to configure proxies from your end, as that has been taken care of for you. But in the case of any of the other tools, such as the data scrapers with point and click interface, then you will need to provide and set up proxies from your end.

Q. What are the Best Free Data Scrapers in the Market?

The list above only contains paid data scrapers. And one will begin to wonder if there are no good free data scrapers you can use for free. There are some web scrapers you can use for free without paying for them. However, these web scrapers come with some limitations that will hinder the capacity of data you can collect. Usually, most of the free options are free tiers with support for opting in as a paid user. Currently, Parsehub and webscraper.io extensions are some of the best data scrapers you can use for free in the market.

Conclusion

Since most websites online will not provide us with data APIs to collect data from their platform, we are left with no other option than to use data scrapers to collect the data we are interested in. The above-mentioned web scrapers are some of the best web scrapers you can use to collect data online. While the no-code scrapers are best for scraping without writing a single line of code, the web scraping APIs are meant online for those with coding knowledge but who want to avoid the headache of maintaining a scraper.

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