Scraperapi Overview

2024-09-26

ScraperAPI is a popular web scraping tool founded in 2018. It was created by a team of developers with a shared vision: to help companies collect clean, insightful data without getting blocked.

Having built many web scrapers, we repeatedly went through the tiresome process of finding proxies, setting up headless browsers, and handling CAPTCHAs. Thatโ€™s why we decided to start ScraperAPI, it handles all of this for you so you can scrape any page with a simple API call!

Overall ScraperAPI performs well with Scrapeway's benchmarks showing it has a great anti-bot bypass success rate, speed and reliability.

ScraperAPI features are on par with industry average, offering features like residential proxy support, geolocation, and Javascript rendering.

screengrab of scraperapi web dashboard
dashboard
screengrab of scraperapi web pipelines
data pipelines
screengrab of scraperapi web api player
api player
screengrab of scraperapi docs
docs

Pros

  • Effective scraper blocking bypass.
  • Integrations for Python, Javascript, Ruby, PHP, NodeJS
  • Automatic data parsing option.
  • Detailed web dashboard for reviewing scraping performance.
  • Web scheduler (called Datapipeline) that can scrape and deliver results on a defined schedule at extra cost.
  • Web UI player for testing and experimenting.

Cons

  • Steep entry point at $49.
  • Often charges for blocked requests.
  • Small geolocations pool.
  • Limited javascript rendering feature set.
  • Credits do not carry over month-to-month.

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Scraperapi vs Other Services

Here's how Scraperapi compares against other web scraping APIs in terms of success rate, speed and cost.

# Service Success % Speed Cost $/1000
1 Scrapfly
94%
11.1s
$3.69
2 WebScrapingAPI
81%
22.8s
$2.42
3 Scraperapi
72%
8.2s
$5.17
4 Zenrows
70%
6.6s
$4.05
5 Scrapingbee
66%
3.5s
$3.12
6 Scrapingdog
51%
5.1s
$1.75
7 Scrapingant
46%
13.7s
$1.99
Data range Nov 29 - Dec 06

This data is based on the averages of Scrapeway's weekly benchmarks covering 12 most popular web scraping targets and overall:

  • Scraperapi has an above-average success rate of 71.5% compared to industry average of 68.4%
  • Scraperapi has an above-average scraping speed of 8.2s compared to industry average of 10.1s
  • Scraperapi has an above-average price of $5.2/1000 scrapes compared to industry average of $3.2
Number 3 service image
Scraperapi is Scrapeway's number 3 overall service for Nov 29 to Dec 6!

Scraperapi Benchmarks

Scrapeway runs weekly benchmarks for Scraperapi for the most popular web scraping targets.

Target Success % Speed Cost $/1000
72%
8.2s
$5.17
100%
3.4s
$4.9
100%
4.4s
$0.49
99%
7.3s
$9.8
99%
3.5s
$2.45
98%
5.2s
$2.45
98%
8.7s
$14.7
98%
8.9s
$4.9
93%
8.1s
$4.9
1%
40.8s
$12.25
0%
-
-
0%
-
-
Data range Nov 29 - Dec 06

Scraperapi Pricing

ScraerAPI is a credit-based service where each scrape request can cost 1-30 credits depending on the used features, scraped website type and the required anti-bot bypass.

Plan Price Credits Concurrency
Hobby $49 100,000 20
Startup $149 1,000,000 50
Business $299 3,000,000 100
Enterprise - - -

Overall ScraperAPI entry point plan is well below industry average though it evens out with higher tiers.

Scraperapi Features

Overall, ScraperAPI offers a wide range of features matching the industry average. It offers the standard feature set of for all plans:

Feature Availability
Integrations Python, Javascript, Ruby, PHP, NodeJS
Proxy support Datacenter default, Residential optional, Mobile for custom plans
Geolocation 2 countries (13 for the highest tier)
Webhook support Yes
Javascreipt rendering Yes, at extra cost
Custom JS evaluation No
Browser control No
Screenshots No
Sessions Yes, persistent IP for 15min

To add, ScraperAPI offers some unique features at no extra cost included with every plan:

  • Structured data scraping for select targets: Amazon, Google, Walmart.
  • Autoparse which will attempt to extract relevant data from the HTML as JSON automatically.
  • Datapipeline (beta) - tool for scheduling scraping tasks at extra credit cost.

Scraperapi Review

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