For those looking at extracting information from websites, scraping tools are the wave of the future. This technique is specifically designed for extracting information at scale from websites. The software can look for data to scrape manually or automatically and can render javascript to obtain data in a usable form.
With so many scraping tools and services available at your disposal, it can be difficult choosing a program that best works for your differing needs. From people who are building web scrapers without coding to developers who want web scrapers to crawl large sites, there are many programs for extracting information from websites. We’ve compiled six of the best on the market for you.
OctoParse
OctoParse offers its users the ability of easily building web crawlers using a point-and-click interface where a knowledge of coding is not required. This makes it a tremendous option for those who still want control over the entire process of web scraping without coding. The software comes with some great abilities for users who don’t want to pay for the entire suite, allowing users to build 10 crawlers for free. For paying customers, the fully customized crawlers and managed solutions deliver easy-to-understand data directly to your fingertips. However, OctoParse is only available for Windows users.
ParseHub
Similar to OctoParse, ParseHub offers a free and incredibly powerful scraping tool for building web scrapers without coding. Its point-and-click software builds simple to understand web scrapers that excel at getting the information that you want. The data is then accessible via JSON, Excel and API while it's collected on ParseHub’s servers. The point-and-click software lets users get data from multiple pages that is then available to interact with in AJAX, forms and dropdown menus while machine learning technology can recognize the most complicated documents on the web and generate simple output files in your required data format. Plus, ParseHub’s web scraping desktop application allows you to scrape dynamic websites and scenarios across the web.
ProWebScraper
Arguably the best web scraping tool for collecting web data at scale, ProWebScraper is designed to extract data from websites effortlessly. Point-and-click technology enables the user to find interesting items and extract them into your dataset. This free tool can scrape information from 90 percent of websites on the Internet and data is available to download in CSV or JSON format. REST APIs directly integrate scraped web data into your business processes and data can be scheduled to be extracted at convenient times by hour, day, week or month.
Scraper
Scraper is a Google Chrome extension that exports data to Google Spreadsheets, making it an ideal tool for beginners in the web data extraction world. This free tool from the headless browser integrates directly into your browser and automatically generates smaller XPaths for defining URLs to crawl. Expert users will no doubt enjoy easily copying data to the clipboard or storing information to the spreadsheets using OAuth.
Scrapingbee
Handling headless browsers and proxy management is a piece of cake with Scrapingbee, a web scraping API that renders and executes Javascript on the pages for each request you give it. Scrapingbee can be used in conjunction with a Google Sheet, allowing for seamless integration or projects in the chrome web browser. It’s a great web scraping service for scraping Amazon and naturally works well to support Google search scraping. Excellent documentation and easy integration make this software a great choice for developers and tech companies who’d like to handle web scraping and web data extraction themselves without need of proxies or headless browsers.
ScrapingHub
ScrapingHub is a cloud-based data extraction tool that procures crucial data sets for thousands of developers. Operating on Crawlera, a smart proxy rotator system that supports bypassing bot countermeasures, the software can easily convert entire web pages into organized content. This makes it a great crawl builder to innovate and grow your business through data extraction. ScrapingHub offers both free and premium plans for subscribers.
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