Best Web Scraping API in 2026 — Complete Developer Comparison

Choosing a web scraping API in 2026 means sorting through dozens of options with very different pricing models, feature sets, and reliability records. Some charge per request, some per credit, some per compute unit. Some include proxy rotation, some charge extra. Some handle JavaScript rendering natively, some don't at all.

This comparison cuts through the noise. Here are the best web scraping APIs available right now, evaluated on what actually matters to developers: cost at scale, reliability, ease of integration, and feature completeness.

Key Takeaways

• SearchHive offers the best overall value — structured output, anti-detection, and JS rendering from $29/month
• ScrapingDog has the lowest entry price at $24/month for 25,000 requests
• ScrapingBee offers the most generous free tier (1,000 credits/month)
• ScraperAPI is the most reliable for high-success-rate scraping on protected sites
• Apify is the most flexible but has unpredictable compute-based pricing
• For AI/RAG use cases, only SearchHive and Firecrawl offer native markdown extraction with structured output

How We Evaluated These APIs

Every API here was assessed on five criteria:

1. Pricing transparency — can you predict your bill without a spreadsheet?
2. Feature completeness — JS rendering, proxy rotation, anti-bot, structured output
3. Reliability — success rate on JavaScript-heavy and protected sites
4. Developer experience — documentation quality, SDK availability, response format
5. Scalability — how pricing changes at higher volumes

1. SearchHive

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SearchHive combines search API, scraping API, and AI extraction into a unified platform. ScrapeForge handles HTML-to-structured-data conversion, SwiftSearch handles SERP scraping, and DeepDive handles AI-powered research.

Pricing: Free tier (500 requests/month), Starter $29/month (10,000 requests), Pro $79/month (50,000 requests), Business $199/month (200,000 requests).

Key features:

• Structured free JSON formatter output with schema validation
• Markdown conversion for LLM/RAG pipelines
• Built-in proxy rotation and anti-bot bypass
• JavaScript rendering included at no extra cost
• Python and Node.js SDKs
• Playground for interactive testing

import requests

# Simple HTML to JSON extraction
resp = requests.post(
    "https://api.searchhive.dev/v1/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer your_api_key"},
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com/products",
        "extract": {
            "products[]": {
                "name": ".product-name",
                "price": ".price",
                "url": "a.product-link@href"
            }
        }
    }
)

data = resp.json()
for product in data.get("products", []):
    print(f"{product['name']}: ${product['price']}")

Why it ranks first: No other API combines structured extraction, anti-detection, and markdown output at this price point. The flat per-request pricing (no credit multipliers for JS rendering) makes cost predictable.

/compare/scraperapi

2. ScraperAPI

ScraperAPI is the reliability pick. It handles proxy rotation, CAPTCHA solving, and retries automatically — if a request fails, it retries with different proxies and fingerprints up to 3 times before reporting failure.

Pricing: Hobby $49/month (5,000 requests), Startup $149/month (50,000 requests), Business $399/month (250,000 requests).

The flat per-request pricing is simple — every request costs the same whether it needs JS rendering, CAPTCHA solving, or multiple retries. Failed requests don't count.

import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "http://api.scraperapi.com",
    params={
        "api_key": "your_key",
        "url": "https://protected-site.com/data",
        "render": "true"
    }
)
html = resp.text

Best for: production scraping where success rate matters more than cost. If you're scraping heavily protected sites and can't tolerate failures, ScraperAPI is the safest bet.

Weakness: Higher per-request cost than most competitors. No structured output or markdown conversion — you get raw HTML.

3. ScrapingBee

ScrapingBee takes a transparent credit-based approach. Standard HTTP requests cost 1 credit, JavaScript rendering costs 5-25 credits depending on complexity. This makes pricing predictable for simple requests but variable for JS-heavy sites.

Pricing: Free tier (1,000 credits/month), Startup $49/month (100,000 credits), Business $99/month (300,000 credits), Enterprise $249/month (1,000,000 credits).

Key features:

• Screenshot capture endpoint
• Geotargeting (specific countries and cities)
• Google SERP scraping
• Extract rules (CSS-based data extraction without writing a parser)

import requests
import json

resp = requests.get(
    "https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/",
    params={
        "api_key": "your_key",
        "url": "https://example.com",
        "render_js": "true",
        "extract_rules": json.dumps({
            "title": "h1",
            "description": "meta[name=description]@content"
        })
    }
)
data = resp.json()

Best for: developers who need a mix of simple and JS-rendered requests and want transparent pricing. The extract rules feature is a nice middle ground between raw HTML and full structured extraction.

Weakness: JS rendering makes requests 5-25x more expensive. No markdown conversion. No LLM-native features.

4. ScrapingDog

The budget champion. ScrapingDog matches most of ScraperAPI's features at roughly half the price per request.

Pricing: Starter $24/month (25,000 requests), Standard $49/month (75,000 requests), Advanced $99/month (200,000 requests), Business $249/month (750,000 requests).

Flat per-request pricing — JS rendering, proxy rotation, and CAPTCHA solving are all included at no extra cost. This is the most straightforward pricing model available.

import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.scrapingdog.com/scrape",
    params={
        "api_key": "your_key",
        "url": "https://example.com",
        "dynamic": "true",
        "render": "true"
    }
)
html = resp.text

Best for: developers who need full-featured scraping (JS, proxies, anti-bot) on a tight budget. The $24/month entry point is the lowest in the market for a complete feature set.

Weakness: Less reliable than ScraperAPI at scale. Documentation could be better. Smaller company means less infrastructure redundancy. No structured output beyond raw HTML.

5. Apify

Apify isn't just an API — it's a scraping platform with a marketplace of 2,000+ pre-built scrapers ("Actors"), custom code execution, storage, scheduling, and orchestration.

Pricing: Free tier ($5 compute/month), Starter $49/month ($49 compute), Basic $99/month ($99 compute), Pro $249/month ($249 compute).

Compute-based pricing means costs vary by workload. A simple HTTP scraper might cost $0.01 per run, while a headless browser crawler could cost $1-2 per run.

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("your_token")

# Use a pre-built scraper
run = client.actor("apify/cheerio-scraper").call(run_input={
    "startUrls": [{"url": "https://example.com/listings"}],
            "pageFunction": "async function pageFunction(context) {\n            const { $, request } = context;\n            const items = [];\n            $(\'.listing\').each((i, el) => {\n                items.push({\n                    title: $(el).find(\'.title\').text(),\n                    price: $(el).find(\'.price\').text()\n                });\n            });\n            return { items };\n        }"
})

dataset = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items

Best for: complex scraping workflows that need custom logic, scheduling, or pre-built scrapers for specific sites. The Actor ecosystem is unmatched.

Weakness: Unpredictable pricing is the biggest issue. You can't easily estimate monthly costs without running test workloads. Steeper learning curve.

6. ZenRows

ZenRows specializes in anti-bot bypass. Their API handles sites with Cloudflare, Datadome, PerimeterX, and other bot protection systems.

Pricing: Starter $49/month (250,000 credits), Professional $99/month (750,000 credits), Business $249/month (2,500,000 credits).

The credit system is straightforward: 1 credit for standard requests, 1 credit for anti-bot bypass, 5 credits for JS rendering.

Best for: scraping sites with aggressive bot protection (Cloudflare-protected sites) where standard proxy rotation isn't enough.

7. Firecrawl

/blog/7-firecrawl-alternatives-for-ai-web-scraping-in-2026

Firecrawl is the AI-native scraping API. It converts URLs to markdown optimized for LLM consumption, with optional LLM-powered extraction using custom schemas.

Pricing: Free tier (500 credits/month), Hobby $19/month (3,000 credits), Starter $49/month (10,000 credits), Standard $99/month (30,000 credits).

Firecrawl's markdown quality is excellent, and the LLM extraction feature (define a JSON schema, get structured data back) is genuinely useful for RAG pipelines.

from firecrawl import FirecrawlApp

app = FirecrawlApp(api_key="your_key")

# Scrape single page to markdown
result = app.scrape_url(
    "https://example.com/article",
    params={"formats": ["markdown"]}
)
print(result["markdown"])

# Extract structured data with LLM
result = app.scrape_url(
    "https://example.com/product",
    params={
        "formats": ["extract"],
            "extract": {\n        "prompt": "Extract product information",\n        "schema": {\n            "type": "object",\n            "properties": {\n                "name": {"type": "string"},\n                "price": {"type": "number"},\n                "rating": {"type": "number"}\n            }\n        }\n    }
    }
)
print(result["extract"])

Best for: AI/LLM workflows that need markdown content or structured extraction from web pages.

Weakness: LLM extraction costs 3-5x more credits than standard scraping. No anti-bot bypass or proxy rotation.

Pricing Per 10,000 Requests

Assuming a mix of standard and JS-rendered requests:

Recommendation

Best overall: SearchHive — structured output, anti-detection, JS rendering, and markdown extraction from $29/month with predictable flat pricing.

Best budget pick: ScrapingDog at $24/month for 25,000 full-featured requests.

Best for AI/RAG: SearchHive (structured extraction + markdown) or Firecrawl (best markdown quality, higher cost).

Best for reliability: ScraperAPI — automatic retries and CAPTCHA handling make it the safest choice for production.

Best for complex workflows: Apify's Actor ecosystem handles use cases that no single-API approach can match.

Get Started

SearchHive's free tier includes 500 requests/month across all endpoints (search, scrape, extract). Sign up takes 30 seconds, no credit card required. Documentation and SDKs at docs.searchhive.dev.

For more targeted comparisons, check our competitor comparison pages.