Top Cloud Web Scraper Providers in 2023

Web scraping has become an essential tool for gathering information, and cloud web scrapers offer a practical entry point for those new to the field. Web scraping service providers often come with a “Self Service” option, allowing even those with basic technical know-how to build their own scrapers.

A self-service cloud web scraper is a good choice if you want to try web scraping and have the basic technical knowledge to build scrapers.

In this post, we will go through some of the popular cloud-based web scraping platforms and provide details about how they work and their pros and cons from information publicly available on their website.

Cloud-Based Web Scraping Platforms:

• ScrapeHero Cloud
• Scrapy Cloud
• Cloud Scraper
• Parsehub
• Dexi.io
• Diffbot
• Import.io

ScrapeHero Cloud

ScrapeHero Cloud is a browser-based, cloud-based web scraping platform built by ScrapeHero. It has affordable, pre-built crawlers and APIs to scrape popular website data such as Amazon product data, Google Map listings, and Walmart product details.

A crawler can be set up in 3 easy steps:

1. Create an account
2. Select the crawler you wish to run
3. Provide input and click ‘Gather Data‘

ScrapeHero Cloud Platform allows you to add crawlers, check the crawler status, and review scraped data fields and the total number of pages crawled. The interface has crawlers that can scrape websites with features such as infinite scrolling, pagination, and pop-ups. You can run a maximum of up to 4 crawlers at a time.

The scraped data can be downloaded in CSV, JSON, and XML formats and delivered to your Dropbox. ScrapeHero Cloud lets you set up and schedule the web crawlers periodically to receive updated data from the website.

Every ScrapeHero Cloud plan has automatic IP rotation available to avoid getting blocked by the websites. ScrapeHero Cloud provides Email support to all free and lite plan customers and priority support to all customers with higher plans.

If there is a field that a crawler is not scraping which you require, simply send an email, and the team will respond with a personalized plan.

Data Export

• File formats – CSV, JSON, and XML
• Integrates with Dropbox

Pros

• No programming skills are required
• Can run up to 4 crawlers at a time
• Easy to use simple user interface
• Small learning curve
• Supports all browsers
• Includes Automatic IP rotation in every plan
• Email support for free plans and Priority support for plans beyond Lite plan

Cons

• It supports a limited number of websites, but new scrapers are added frequently.

You might also be interested: How to scrape Google Maps using ScrapeHero Cloud (no-code)

Scrapy Cloud

Scrapy Cloud is a hosted, cloud web scraper service by Zyte, where you can deploy scrapers built using the Scrapy framework. Scrapy Cloud removes the need to set up and monitor servers and provides a nice UI to manage spiders and review scraped items, logs, and stats.

Data Export

• File Formats – CSV, JSON, XML
• Scrapy Cloud API
• Write to any database or location using ItemPipelines

Pros

• The only cloud service that lets you deploy a scraper built using Scrapy – the most popular web scraping cloud framework
• Highly Customizable as it is Scrapy
• Unlimited Pages Per Crawl (if you are not using Crawlera)
• No Vendor Lock-In as Scrapy is open source, and you can deploy Scrapy Spiders to the less functional open source ScrapyD Platform if you feel like switching
• An array of useful add-ons that can improve the crawl
• Useful for large-scale scraping
• A decent user interface that lets you see all sorts of logs a developer would need

Cons

• No point-and-click utility
• You still need to “code” scrapers
• Large-scale crawls can get expensive as you move up to higher pricing tiers

Cloud Scraper

Cloud scraper by Webscraper.io is another cloud web scraper platform where you can deploy scrapers built and tested using the free point-and-click Webscraper.io Chrome Extension. Using the extension you create “sitemaps” that shows how the data should be traversed and extracted. You can write the data directly in CouchDB or download it as a CSV file.

Data Export

• CSV or Couch DB

Pros

• You can get started quickly as the tool is as simple as it gets and has great tutorial videos.
• Supports javascript-heavy websites
• The extension is open source, so you will not be locked in with the vendor if the service shuts down

Cons

• Not ideal for large-scale scrapes, as it is based on a chrome extension. Once the number of pages you need to scrape goes beyond a few thousand, there are chances for the scrapes to be stuck or fail.
• No support for external proxies or IP Rotation
• Cannot Fill Forms or Inputs

ParseHub

ParseHub lets you build cloud web scrapers to crawl single and multiple websites with the support for JavaScript, AJAX, cookies, sessions, and redirects using their Desktop Application and deploying them to their cloud service.

Data Export

• File Formats – CSV, JSON
• Integrates with Google Sheets and Tableau
• ParseHub API

Pros

• Point and Click Tool is simple to set up and use
• No programming skills are required
• Supports javascript-heavy websites
• The desktop application works in Windows, Mac, and Linux
• Includes Automatic IP Rotation

Cons

• Vendor Lock-In – You will be locked in the ParseHub ecosystem as the tool only lets you run scrapers in their cloud You can’t export your scrapers to any other platform or tool using ParseHub.
• Cannot write directly to any database

Dexi.io

Dexi.io provides cloud-based web scraping and is similar to ParseHub and Octoparse, except that it has a web-based point-and-click utility instead of a desktop-based tool. It lets you develop, host, and schedule cloud web scrapers like the others. Dexi has a concept of extractors and transformers interconnected using Pipes. This can be seen as an advanced but intricate substitute for Yahoo Pipes.

Data Export

• File Formats – CSV, JSON, XML
• Can write to most databases through add-ons
• Integrates with many cloud services
• Dexi API

Pros

• Many Integrations, including Storage, ETL, and Visualisation tools
• Web-based point-and-click utility

Cons

• Vendor Lock-In – You will be locked in the Dexi ecosystem as the tool only lets you run scrapers in their cloud platform. You cannot export your scrapers to any other platform
• Access to integrations comes at a high price
• Setting up a scraper using the web-based UI is very slow and hard to work with for most websites
• Steep learning curve

Diffbot

Diffbot lets you configure crawlers that can go in and index websites and then process them using its automatic APIs for automatic data extraction from various web content. You can also write a custom extractor if the automatic data extraction API doesn’t work for the websites you need.

Data Export

• File Formats – CSV, JSON, Excel
• Cannot write directly to databases
• Integrates with many cloud services through Zapier
• Diffbot APIs

Pros

• Most of the websites do not usually need much setup as the automatic APIs do a lot of the heavy lifting for you
• The custom API creation tool is easy to use
• No IP rotation for the first two plans

Cons

• Vendor Lock-In – You will be locked in the Diffbot ecosystem as the tool only lets you run scrapers in their environment platform.
• Relatively Expensive

Import.io

With Import.io, you can clean, transform and visualize the data. It sits somewhere between Dexi.io, Octoparse, and ParseHub. You can build a cloud web scraper using a web-based point-and-click interface. Like Diffbot, import.io can handle most of the data extraction automatically.

Data Export

• File Formats – CSV, JSON, Google Sheets
• Integrates with many cloud services
• Import.io APIs ( Premium Feature )

Pros

• A whole package – Extraction, transformations, and visualizations.
• Has a lot of value-added services, which some would find useful
• Has a good point-and-click interface along with some automatic APIs to make the setup process effortless

Cons

• Vendor Lock-In – You will be locked in the Import.io ecosystem as the tool only lets you run scrapers in their environment platform.
• Quite Expensive
• Confusing pricing model

Need for Self-Service Cloud-Based Web Scraping

Self-service web scraping is more than a tool; it’s a method that enables various professionals to collect and analyze data effectively without needing an extensive technical background.

Let’s explore why self-service web scraping is essential:

Efficiency

Gone are the days of manual copy-pasting. Self-service web scraping eliminates this tedious process, allowing for swift data extraction from websites. It’s a time-saver, freeing up hours for higher-value tasks.

Insights

From understanding competitors’ strategies to analyzing pricing and market positioning, self-service scraping tools provide essential insights. They make vast amounts of information readily accessible, feeding data-driven decision-making.

Accessibility

Who can use self-service web scraping? The answer is broad:

• Analysts: Business, financial, and pricing analysts, among others, can leverage these tools to understand trends and make informed predictions.
• Intelligence Professionals: Competitive intelligence, business intelligence, and market intelligence teams can use self-service scraping to monitor companies, products, and topics, checking for updates and changes.
• Data Professionals: Data scientists, analysts, or those in data acquisition can gather information to support hypotheses or build business cases without being reliant on technical teams.
• Research Scholars: They can utilize self-service web scraping for analyzing data for various projects, helping them in their research endeavors without technical hurdles.

Wrapping Up

When it comes to web scraping, self-service options are becoming more accessible to professionals in various fields. It’s necessary to find a tool that aligns with your specific needs and skill level. With the vast amount of information available, web scraping is essential for insightful decision-making in today’s information-driven world.

If you aren’t proficient with programming (visual or standard coding), or your needs are complex, and you need large volumes of data to be scraped, there are great web scraping and web crawling services or custom web scraping APIs that will suit your requirements to make the job easier for you.

You can save time and get clean, structured data by trying ScrapeHero – a full-service data provider. All you have to do is communicate your needs and you’ll be provided with hassle-free, structured and data of unmatched quality and consistency.

 

Note: All features listed are current at the time of writing this article. Please check the individual websites for current features and pricing.