Web Scraping Tool Reviews (2026)
Tested on the same three targets: Shopify static, Akamai-protected e-commerce, Google SERP. 1,000 requests per target per vendor. Success rates, cost per 1K records, and compliance status — all published.
Scrapy Community (Open Source)
9.2/10✓ Python developers who need to scrape thousands to millions of pages at scale with full control over request handling, pipelines, and storage
Free (open source) — costs are infrastructure: cloud server £5-50/month or proxy provider costs
Read review →Zyte
9/10✓ Enterprise teams needing 94%+ success rates, a signed DPA, and managed extraction
From $450/mo (usage-based above this)
Read review →Apify
8.8/10✓ No-code teams and AI engineers who want 8,000 pre-built scrapers out of the box
$49/mo Starter
Read review →Bright Data
8.7/10✓ Enterprise teams needing residential proxy at scale, SERP data, or SOC-2 + DPA compliance
From $500/mo (usage-based; residential proxy $8.40/GB)
Read review →Microsoft (Playwright) / Google (Puppeteer)
8.5/10✓ Scraping JavaScript-rendered pages, SPAs, and sites that require browser-like interaction (clicking, scrolling, form submission)
Free (open source) — infrastructure costs: cloud VM £5-20/month; proxy costs are separate
Read review →ScraperAPI
8.5/10✓ Indie founders with a curl loop and a deadline
$49/mo Hobby (20K credits)
Read review →Leonard Richardson (Beautiful Soup) / Kenneth Reitz (Requests)
7.8/10✓ Python beginners, small-to-medium scraping projects (up to ~10K pages), rapid prototyping, and projects where you need results today
Free (both are open source)
Read review →Octoparse
7.5/10✓ Non-technical users who need point-and-click desktop scraping with a free tier
Free desktop / $75/mo Pro
Read review →