Best Web Scrapers
In a hurry?
The best data collection tool in 2023, as found in our independent testing, is ScraperAPI!
If you are looking for the best data collection tools on the market for gathering real-time web data, then this article is for you.
Data collection has become very easy today and we will learn about the top data collector tools that you can use to collect data from web pages in real-time.
In today’s time, web scraping has become a popular automated process for collecting public data from various web pages. As compared to doing it manually, web scraping is considered more powerful and faster.
Doing it manually is also considered repetitive, error-prone, and ineffective; you will eventually end up wasting your time.
The Internet is the largest source if you are looking for user-generated content. In today’s time, data collection is considered a popular task; however, the task becomes quite difficult if done on a large scale.
Of course, web servers are not big fans of content theft and automated access, which is the reason why they make use of systems that will discourage such activities. These activities are often termed theft by some web servers.
Thankfully, there are a handful of data collectors that have been developed to steer clear from such anti-bot systems employed by these web pages so that you can scrape data with no problems.
One of the best aspects of these tools is that you do not have to know coding languages to operate them. They feature amazing interfaces that will allow you to scrape data of interest.
Now, let us learn about some of the best data collection tools that you can use for data scraping.
There are many types of data collection tools you can find in the market today.
Most of these tools can be used by both coders and non-coders alike.
Best Data Collection Tools 2023
- ScraperAPI – 🏆 Winner!
- Oxylabs
- Bright Data Collector
- Apify’s Web Scraper
- ScrapingBee
- Proxycrawl
- ParseHub
- Helium Scraper
- Agenty Scraping Agent
- Mozenda
1. ScraperAPI
- Cost: $29 for 250,000 API calls
- Size Of The Proxy Pool: Above 40 million
- Support For Geotargeting: Will depend on the plan you choose
- Free Trial: 5,000 API calls
One of the top data collectors in the market is the ScraperAPI, which is a proxy-based API developed for web scrapers.
You simply need to provide the URL of the web page you want to scrape data from. This tool is very efficient and capable of handling headless browsers, Captchas, and proxies.
For instance, ScraperAPI will render JavaScript with the help of a headless browser. The tool also detects reviews that are constantly updated and verified, along with the URL.
Thanks to more than 40 million IP addresses from more than 50 locations, ScraperAPI will help scrape geo-targeted content.
It is also one of the cheapest web scrapers in the market today and will offer you a great free trial so that you can experience how the tool works before purchasing it. This tool is very impressive and will provide you with successful requests.
It also has support for various programming and coding languages. The tool keeps maintaining the platform to ensure that the API keeps getting better.
2. Oxylabs
- Cost: $75 per month
- Supported OS: Windows
- Format For Data Output: SQLServer, MySQL, JSON, Excel, CSV
- Free Trails: 14 days free trial with certain limitations
Oxylabs is one of the most popular data collection tools in the market today.
Perhaps the best aspect of this tool is that you do not need to have any coding knowledge.
The interface is very simple and quick to understand; here, you will find clicks and points for selecting the type of data you are interested in.
Oxylabs can easily convert the chosen web page into structured data.
Another great aspect of this platform is that you can easily learn how Oxylabs works.
Oxylabs is capable of dealing with all types of web pages and will help you download scraped data in several formats.
While the tool is not free, you will be provided with an amazing 7-day free trial period so that you will have an easier time deciding whether you want to purchase the tool or not.
The interface is quite intuitive and the program has been priced very reasonably. While it is very sophisticated, it is quite user-friendly.
3. Bright Data Collector
Important Guide: Bright Data’s Data Collector Review
- Cost: $500 for 151K page load
- Size Of The Proxy Pool: Above 72 million
- Support For Geotargeting: Yes
- Free Trails: Available
Bright Data is considered one of the best data collection tools in the market today.
It is quite renowned in the proxy market and is fitted with various data collection features like its Data Collector. This company has become the top brand in the data collection market.
This tool will provide you with affordable access to a global network of IP addresses so that you can scrape all sorts of web pages without much difficulty.
With the help of Bright Data’s data collection tool, you will be able to collect public data from any web page over the internet.
It will provide you with a list of collectors and also allow you to create your own if you are unable to build one for the target web page.
This tool has been developed in such a way that you will not have to think about the constantly changing nature of the page layouts, scalability, and blocking issues.
4. Apify’s Web Scraper
- Cost: $49 for $49 platform credits
- Size Of The Proxy Pool: Not disclosed
- Support For Geotargeting: Yes
- Free Trails: Available for new users
The Apify company is known for creating tools that will automate all your online tasks. With the help of Apify, you will be able to automate all your manual tasks on your browser with the help of automation bots.
This tool is mostly used by Node.JS developers and is known to be one of the best data collector tools in the market today.
This tool is a one-stop solution for robotic process automation projects, data extraction, and web scraping.
The only work you need to do is integrate the bots into your code; once done, the bots will start automating the tasks.
You will also find various types of bots that can be used for different types of web pages like Amazon, Google Maps, Google SERP, and various social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
While the platform does offer free shared proxies, experts recommend that you add your own proxies for the best results.
5. ScrapingBee
- Cost: $99 for 1,000,000 API credits
- Size Of The Proxy Pool: Not disclosed
- Support For Geotargeting: Will depend on the plan you choose
- Free Trails: 1,000 API calls
ScrapingBee is one of the top scraping APIs in the market. This tool has been developed to help you collect data from the internet.
This tool is fitted with various features that can help you with various types of tasks like solving or bypassing Captchas, rotating proxies, and handling headless browsers.
Since ScrapingBee works as an API, you simply need to send an API request to the server, along with the web page’s URL as the parameter. Once done, the page HTML will be provided to you as a response.
One of the most interesting aspects of ScrapingBee is that you will only be provided with successful requests. Additionally, the program is also fitted with a data extraction tool that you can use to parse data from general websites.
Alternatively, you will also find an extraction tool that can be used for specific web pages, including Google Search.
6. Proxycrawl
- Cost: $29 for 50,000 credits
- Size Of The Proxy Pool: More than 1 million
- Support For Geotargeting: Will depend on the plan you choose
- Free Trails: 1,000 API calls
Proxycrawl is a professional web scraping tool that offers a complete suite for web crawling and scraping. It is fitted with a lot of features for this purpose.
Proxycrawler is a scraper API that will help you collect data from all types of web pages. This tool is perfect for scraping data with ease.
Proxycrawl is fitted with a scraper API that is great for various web pages like LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Google Search, and many more.
One important aspect here is that you will instantly stop thinking about fixing scrapers. Since it is also available as an API tool, it will be built on a proxycrawl infrastructure.
The interface is extremely user-friendly. The tool has specifically been designed to aid businesses and developers to scrape the web anonymously for data of all sizes.
7. ParseHub
- Cost: Free for desktop users
- Supported OS: Linux, Mac, and Windows
- Format For Data Output: Excel, JSON
While you have Oxylabs on one hand that provides free services for 14 days to new users, you have ParseHub on the other that you can use for free for life.
This program is perfect for modern web pages, which means that it has support for executing and rendering JavaScript.
This also implies that you can use the tool on JavaScript-heavy pages. However, you can also use ParseHub for the most outdated web pages.
ParseHub is quite flexible and powerful and you will find all the features that are required for web scraping. For paid members, you will also have access to cloud-based services.
Additionally, you will also be able to integrate techniques for bypassing anti-bot systems, support for scheduled scraping, etc.
ParseHub is considered the best choice if you do not have any idea related to coding. It is known to be very effective and will only provide the best results.
8. Helium Scraper
- Cost: $99 for three months
- Supported OS: Windows
- Format For Data Output: Excel, CSV
- Free Trails: 10 days trial period
Helium Scraper is an easy-to-understand web scraper that can extract all sorts of data from any web page.
This tool can be downloaded for Windows computers. The interface is very smooth and you will not face any problems using the program.
With Helium Scraper, you will be able to quickly extract the most complex data, thanks to the simple workflow.
You will be provided with various advanced features like JavaScript rendering, text manipulation, API calls, SQL generation, support for databases, support for multiple formats, detection of similar elements, etc.
The tool can be used for 10 days for free, with all features available for use.
9. Agenty Scraping Agent
- Cost: $29 for 5,000 pages
- Format For Data Output: Excel, CSV, Google Spreadsheet
- Free Trails: 14 days free trial
Agenty Scraping Agent is a cloud-based platform that you can use for sentimental analysis, text recognition and extraction, change detection, data scraping, etc.
For this article, we will be talking about the program’s data scraping feature. Even if you are not a coder, you will be able to use this data collection tool for collecting data from various types of web pages.
Once you try Mozenda, you will not want to use other data scraping tools. The system is very easy to understand and use as well.
This tool is available as a Chrome browser extension and will scrap all public data that is available over the internet.
This also includes data that is hidden behind any form of authentication, only if you have the authentication details.
While you will have to pay for using the program, you do have the option of using it for 14 days for free.
10. Mozenda
- Cost: Depends on your project
- Format For Data Output: Excel, CSV, Google Spreadsheets
- Free Trails: Available
Mozenda is a great data collection tool that you can use. Of course, this list is not written in any particular order.
While it may not be placed at the top, Mozenda is definitely one of the best data collection tools today. It is so much more than a normal data collection tool.
Apart from providing you with the capability to collect data from your web pages, it will also provide support for visualizing and analyzing the data.
This scraping service is a great choice if you want to scrape data at any scale. In fact, the service has many big businesses as its clients.
While it is a paid program, you have the choice to use it for 30 days free as a trial period.
What is A Real-Time Data Collector for Extracting Data?
Data collection often means different things when you consider what context you are speaking about.
As per definition, a real-time data collector is an automated web scraper that extracts real-time data with the help of data parsing functions.
These web scrapers extract data from web pages automatically and will keep doing so. These bots will send a web request to the pages, parse the content you are looking for and will provide the data or save it in a format you want.
On one hand, you will find simple web scrapers that can be developed quickly and easily. However, you will require the services of complex scrapers to deal with web pages that have placed effective anti-bot systems; complex scrapers are not easy to develop.
Hence, it is recommended that you make use of a pre-developed data collector tool that will meet all the requirements of a web scraper and help you collect the data that you are looking for.
In the past, there were not a lot of data collector tools available. However, you will find a lot of options today and you can easily choose one that fits your requirement and/or your coding skills.
Why Use Already-made Data Collection Tools?
There are many benefits of using already-made data collection tools. Of course, you can always hire a coder or learn basic coding to develop a web scraper.
However, this would also mean that you will either have to spend money on hiring a developer or spend time and money on learning how to code.
Some important benefits of using already-made data collectors include:
No Coding Skill
If you have no idea about the basics of coding, you should not become frantic and start learning how to code for developing a web scraper. There are various web scrapers that are available to use for people who do not know how to code.
In this article, we have divided the types of web scrapers for people who know how to code and those who don’t. If you have no coding knowledge, you can simply skip to the non-coder section directly.
Scraping Difficult to Scrape Websites
Even if you know how to code, this does not mean that the job is easy. You will face two problems – anti-scraping systems and anti-bot systems.
The reason why some web pages are more difficult to scrape than others is that the former makes heavy use of JavaScript.
Therefore, if you are not experienced in this field and trying to scrape a web page that makes use of rotating proxies, you can get blocked. In such cases, it is always better to make use of an already-made web scraper.
Make Scraping Easy
This particular point is valid for both coders and non-coders. Even if you think you possess the right technical skills, you may not want to keep spinning the wheel; instead, you can make use of this valuable time for other types of work.
An already-made scraper is considered the best choice for such scenarios. You should also know that even Fortune 500 companies often utilize already-made scrapers since they have to go through a lot of data.
FAQs
Is Data Collection from Website Legal?
When you look at it from afar, web scraping may indeed feel like illegal activity.
However, the US court has cleared several rulings between major web scrapers and web services – this implies that web scraping is considered a legal activity.
However, data scraping can still be considered illegal and will depend on your use case. While the activity is considered legal, most web platforms do not prefer being scraped and will put up various anti-bot systems as a defense for preventing data scraping.
This means that you will first have to bypass the anti-bot systems to be able to scrape those web pages.
Do I Need Proxies for the Data Collection Tools Described Above?
For web scraping, proxies are considered an important requirement. If not, any web scraping tool will simply get blocked after trying them out a few times.
Of course, all the above-mentioned data collectors would require proxies; however, the proxies of the providers will also depend on the tool you end up using.
In the case of data collectors like ScraperAPI, ScrapingBee, and Bright Data, they are capable of handling proxies. Therefore, you will not have to add proxies separately.
However, for tools like Oxylabs, ParseHub, and Helium Scraper, you will first have to configure the proxies.
Conclusion
From the above, it is now understood that you now do not require an excuse for not scraping data from websites that you find interesting.
You will always find web data collector tools that will depend on how skilled you are in coding or not.
Of course, some of these data collection tools can be used for free, which only means that you will no longer have to wait to scrape any website.
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Written by Jason Wise
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