Web scraping is useful for various analytical purposes. It can come in handy when you need to carry out online surveys for your business to monitor market trends. However, web scraping requires some technical knowledge, so some people try to avoid it.
But with some web scraping tools out there, you can now get your hands on the data you want without writing a single line of code or going through highly technical processes.
Let's have a look at some online web scrapers that help you grab data for your analytics needs.
1. Scrapingbot
Scrapingbot is one of the most user-friendly web scrapers out there. It also has easy-to-understand documentation to guide you around on how to use the tool.
Scrapingbot offers an Application Programming Interface (API) and ready-made tools for scraping any webpage. It's versatile and works perfectly with business data sources, like retail and real-estate websites, among others.
The data scraping tool doesn't require coding, as it does a bulk of the work for you, and returns the JSON format of any webpage you scrape as a raw HTML. Scrapingbot's pricing is also flexible. You can start out with the free plan before upgrading to a paid subscription.
Although its free plan offers limited features and resources, it's still worth trying if your budget is low or you can't afford the paid options. Just keep in mind that the number of concurrent requests you get to make per scrape with other technical supports reduces as the price drops.
To scrape a website with Scrapingbot, all you need to do is supply the URL of the target website. If you want to get the code version of your request, Scrapingbot also supports different programming languages. It also has an interface that returns the code version of your request in various language formats.
2. Parsehub
Unlike Scrapingbot, Parsehub comes as a desktop app but helps you connect to any website you wish to extract data from.
Featuring a sleek interface, you can either connect to the Parsehub REST API or export the extracted data as JSON, CSV, Excel files, or Google Sheets. You can also schedule the data export if you want.
Getting started with Parsehub is quite easy. Extracting data with it requires little or no technical skills. The tool also has detailed tutorials and docs that make it easy to use. If you ever wish to use its REST API, it has detailed API documentation as well.
If you don't want to save the output data directly to your PC, Parsehub's dynamic cloud-based features let you store your output data on its server and retrieve it anytime. The tool also extracts data from websites that load asynchronously with AJAX and JavaScript.
Although it offers a free option, Parsehub has other paid options that let you get the most out of it. The free option is excellent to start with, but when you pay, you get to scrape data faster with lesser requests per extraction.
3. Dexi.io
Dexi features a simple interface that lets you extract real-time data from any webpage using its built-in machine learning technology, called digital capture robots.
With Dexi, you can extract both text and image data. Its cloud-based solutions let you export scraped data to platforms like Google Sheets, Amazon S3, and more.
In addition to extracting data, Dexi features real-time monitoring tools that keep you updated on changes in competitors' activities.
Although Dexi has a free version, which you can use to execute smaller projects, you don't get access to all of its features. Its paid version, ranging from $105 to $699 per month, gives you access to many premium supports.
Like other online web scrapers, all you need to do is supply Dexi with the target URL, while creating what it calls an extracting robot.
4. Scrapers
Scrapers is a web-based tool for extracting webpage content. Using Scrapers is easy and requires no coding. The documentation is also short and easy to comprehend.
However, the tool offers a free API that lets programmers create reusable and open-source web scrapers. While that option requires you to fill some fields or make use of its built-in text editor to complete a pre-generated block of code, it's still pretty easy and straightforward to use.
The data you extract with Scrapers are available as JSON, HTML, or CSV files. Although the free option offers limited web scrapers, you can still bypass this by creating your scraper with its API.
The paid options charge as low as $30 per month. However, unlike the free plan, none of its paid options limit the number of websites you can scrape. You can even use the scrapers created by other people when you have a membership subscription.
The tool features a fast user experience and a top-notch interface. It also loads your output data asynchronously and makes it downloadable to your PC in the format of your choice.
5. ScrapeHero
If you want to get data from social platforms and online retail outlets, ScrapeHero could be an excellent choice.
It has dedicated data scraping tools for getting data from social media platforms, like Instagram and Twitter, as well as retail and business outlets such as Amazon, Google reviews, among others.
The tool has a dedicated marketplace where you can select a platform you want to scrape. Like other web scrapers we've mentioned, you don't need any coding knowledge to use ScraperHero.
Unlike Paserhub, ScraperHero is 100 percent web-based, so you don't need to install dedicated apps on your PC to use it. ScraperHero is highly responsive and returns data elements rapidly with a few clicks.
6. Scrapingdog
Scrapingdog is a web-based tool for scraping the elements of a website along with its content. Its built-in scraper returns the data of a webpage as raw HTML.
The tool provides an API that gives a more structured output of your data. However, using the API option requires a bit of programming knowledge. But with its built-in scraper, you can avoid using the API option.
Scrapingdog also supports asynchronous loading while crawling and scraping a website's content. To use the web scraper, all you need to do is provide the URL of the website you want to scrape to get its content.
Scrapingdog also offers a premium proxy that allows you to access websites that are more difficult to scrape without getting blocked. Scrapingdog's pricing ranges from $20 to $200 a month after a 30-day free trial.
Combine These Web Scraping Tools With Other Techniques
Using online web scrapers makes life easy when you don't want to write codes. If you use data for business purposes, using these tools can be a smart way of having a competitive edge over other businesses if you know your way around them.
These online web scrapers can give you the essential information you need, but combining them with other tools gives you more control over the type of data you want to scrape.
