Best Web Scraping APIs to Bypass Cloudflare: October 2026 Benchmark

Firecrawl is the best web scraping API for bypassing Cloudflare, with a 99% success rate across 6 web scraping APIs benchmarked against live Cloudflare-protected sites in October 2026. Only 2 of the 6 cleared above 90%, and only 2 cleared 50% at all.

Cloudflare is the most widely deployed anti-bot and CDN on the web, and most scraping APIs either fail its JavaScript challenges outright or pay for the bypass in speed and cost. The benchmark is refreshed every month, with no affiliate links and no sponsors.

Ranked by live Cloudflare success rate, best first:

1. 🥇 Firecrawl: 99% success on Cloudflare
2. 🥈 Scrapfly: 97% success on Cloudflare
3. 🥉 ScraperAPI: 41% success on Cloudflare

Top 4 web scraping APIs for Cloudflare, ranked

Cloudflare protects one clean benchmark target, Indeed. Its per-target ranking lives on the Indeed page rather than being duplicated here.

#	Service	Success	Speed	Cost/1k		Code
1 🥇	Firecrawl	99%	8.6s	$0.83	—	code
2 🥈	Scrapfly	97%	24.7s	$5.78	(237) ★ 4.9	code
3 🥉	ScraperAPI	41%	25.4s	$9.80	(62) ★ 4.6	code
4	Scrapingdog	38%	2.1s	$0.20	—	code

Data range Oct 01 – Nov 01

Ranking history: web scraping APIs vs Cloudflare over time

The 4 web scraping APIs for Cloudflare, reviewed

1. Firecrawl: 99% success on Cloudflare

Firecrawl runs a real browser, so it can execute Cloudflare's JavaScript challenge, and its draw is the output: it returns structured markdown rather than raw HTML, which saves a parsing step for LLM and RAG pipelines. It's one of the pricier options, so that saving has to be worth it. On Cloudflare it cleared 99% this run.

Pros:

• Returns LLM-ready markdown, saving a parsing step for AI and RAG pipelines
• Runs a real browser that can execute Cloudflare's JavaScript challenge

Cons:

• Among the highest cost per successful request; users cite pricing as the top complaint
• Renders a full browser on every page, so it is among the slowest options
• Clearing Cloudflare's challenge is compute-heavy, which is where that latency comes from

2. Scrapfly: 97% success on Cloudflare

Cloudflare screens every request on several signals at once: IP reputation, a TLS and HTTP/2 fingerprint and a browser-side JavaScript challenge (Managed Challenge or Turnstile). Clearing it means passing all of them on the same request, which is what Scrapfly is built for. It cleared 97% of Cloudflare requests this run at $5.78 per 1,000 successful and 24.7s average. Consistency is the standout: it holds its rate without challenge pages slipping through on retries.

Pros:

• 97% success in the test, #2 of 4, clearing Cloudflare's Managed Challenge and Turnstile without extra setup
• Only charges for successful scrapes, so failed requests cost nothing
• First-class SDKs for Python, TypeScript, Go and Rust, plus a Scrapy extension
• One unblocker flag turns on the full anti-bot stack, so there is little to tune

Cons:

• The entry (Discovery) plan caps concurrency at 5 requests, so high-throughput jobs need a higher tier
• The free tier is a one-time 1,000 credits, enough to prototype and smoke-test but not to benchmark at volume
• The dashboard could be more polished for usage monitoring and debugging

3. ScraperAPI: 41% success on Cloudflare

ScraperAPI is built for speed and a simple integration: when it clears a request it tends to return fast. Cloudflare is the harder test for that model, because its browser-side JavaScript challenge needs a full browser rather than a fast request path. On Cloudflare it cleared 41% this run.

Pros:

• Fast when it clears, with a simple integration
• Broad language SDK support

Cons:

• A fast request path doesn't guarantee Cloudflare's JavaScript challenge is solved, so plan for retries
• Login-required sites and form filling are off-limits
• Geotargeting is gated by plan (US and EU only until the Business tier)

4. Scrapingdog: 38% success on Cloudflare

Scrapingdog cleared 38% of Cloudflare requests at $0.20 per 1,000 successful requests and averaged 2.1s per request this run.

What makes Cloudflare hard to scrape

Cloudflare sits as a reverse proxy in front of the origin server, so every request is screened before it ever reaches the site. It scores requests on several signals at once, and a scraper has to look right on all of them.

The first is IP reputation. Datacenter ranges are flagged instantly, which is why scrapers that don't rotate through residential or mobile addresses get challenged before anything else loads.

The second is TLS and HTTP/2 fingerprinting. Cloudflare inspects the low-level handshake (cipher order, extensions, header order) to build a JA3/JA4 fingerprint. A plain HTTP client like requests or axios produces a signature no real browser would, so a mismatch gets you blocked no matter how clean the IP.

On top of that sit JavaScript challenges. Managed Challenge and Turnstile run browser-side proof-of-work and environment checks that a headless client either can't execute or runs in a detectably automated way.

Finally there are behavioral signals like mouse movement, timing and navigation patterns. These flag sessions that act like a script rather than a person.

This is why most APIs in the ranking fail or score low. Clearing Cloudflare means getting the IP, the TLS fingerprint, the JavaScript execution and the browser environment all consistent at once, and getting any one wrong means the request is challenged. It also explains why the providers that do clear it tend to be slower or more expensive: solving the challenge costs real compute.

How to choose a web scraping API for Cloudflare

Match the choice to your binding constraint. The ranked table is sorted by current success rate; use it alongside this guidance rather than a fixed order.

• Reliability first. Firecrawl leads on Cloudflare and holds its rate across sessions, which is what production pipelines need when failed requests create downstream problems.
• Cost or speed. Among the providers still clearing Cloudflare this run, compare cost per successful request and speed, and pick the one that fits your job. Don't build on the ones that fail the JavaScript challenge.

Avoid choosing on sticker price. Compare cost per successful request rather than the headline rate: requests that need JavaScript rendering or premium proxies use more credits.

How we benchmark web scraping APIs against Cloudflare

We independently benchmark 6 web scraping APIs against live Cloudflare-protected targets, up to 1,550 requests per service, once a month. No affiliate links, no sponsors, no providers with early access to results. Every provider is tested against the same URLs in the same run, so the numbers stay comparable.

Every API is tested against the same URLs concurrently, and cost is measured per 1,000 successful requests on the plan we pay for. Latest data: Oct 01 – Nov 01, 2026.

Frequently asked questions about scraping Cloudflare

Can web scraping APIs reliably bypass Cloudflare in 2026?

Yes, the best ones do. In this benchmark, 2 cleared above 90% and 2 cleared above 50%. The rest failed more requests than they delivered. Reliability varies widely between providers, so the API matters more than the fact that it can be done.

What's the cheapest web scraping API that actually works on Cloudflare?

Among the providers still clearing Cloudflare this run, pick the one with the lowest cost per successful request; that's the cheapest option that actually delivers. Lower sticker prices appear in the ranking but often fail too many requests to make their rate meaningful.

Why do some APIs score low on Cloudflare?

Because they send plain HTTP requests without solving Cloudflare's defenses. A client that doesn't match a real browser's TLS/HTTP-2 fingerprint, can't execute the JavaScript challenge (Managed Challenge or Turnstile), or uses flagged datacenter IPs gets blocked before any content loads.

Does bypassing Cloudflare require JavaScript rendering?

Usually, yes. Cloudflare's interactive challenges run browser-side, so an API needs a real browser engine to execute and pass them. The providers that clear Cloudflare reliably here all render JavaScript; the ones relying on raw HTTP requests score lowest.

How often is this benchmark updated?

Once a month. We re-run all the APIs against the same live targets, up to 1,550 requests each, and republish the rankings. The benchmark carries no affiliate links or sponsors, so the numbers reflect measured results only.

Conclusion

For Cloudflare-protected targets, Firecrawl is the API to beat: the highest success rate in the test at a low cost per successful request, held consistently across sessions. Below it the standings shift between runs, so use the live table, sorted by current success rate, and judge on cost per successful request rather than sticker price.

The benchmark refreshes once a month, so check it before committing.

Other anti-bots: DataDome · PerimeterX · Kasada · Imperva  ·  Cloudflare targets: Indeed  ·  Hub: All anti-bot benchmarks

Other anti-bot services

PerimeterX DataDome Akamai Kasada Imperva AWS WAF CAPTCHA F5 Bot Defense (Shape Security) Castle reCAPTCHA hCaptcha FingerprintJS GeeTest