Octoparse Alternatives — Better Web Scraping for Businesses

Octoparse Alternatives: 8 Better Web Scraping Tools for Businesses

Octoparse has been a go-to no-code web scraper for years — point, click, extract. It built its reputation on making web scraping accessible to non-technical users with a visual workflow builder. But if you're running data pipelines at scale, the pricing catches up fast. At $249/month for the Professional plan with 20 concurrent cloud runs, and enterprise tiers requiring custom contracts, businesses quickly outgrow the desktop-first model.

The real problem with Octoparse isn't that it's bad — it's that it's built for the wrong audience at scale. The desktop application becomes a bottleneck. Cloud runs have hard concurrency limits. And the add-on pricing for proxies ($3/GB), CAPTCHA solving ($1-1.5K solves), and custom crawler setups ($399+) makes the real cost much higher than the sticker price.

If you have developers on your team, you're paying for a desktop app and visual builder you don't need. API-first tools deliver the same results at a fraction of the cost, with better integration into your existing data infrastructure.

Here are 8 Octoparse alternatives that offer better pricing, faster performance, or more flexibility for business web scraping in 2026.

Key Takeaways

• SearchHive undercuts Octoparse at every tier — 100K operations for $49/month vs Octoparse's $249/month Professional plan
• API-first tools eliminate the desktop app bottleneck and integrate directly into your data pipelines
• Octoparse's add-on pricing (proxies, CAPTCHA solving, custom crawlers) makes real costs 2-3x the base subscription
• Open-source options like Scrapy give you unlimited scraping for free if you have engineering resources
• Businesses doing enterprise-scale extraction should evaluate per-request API pricing, not just monthly subscription tiers

1. SearchHive — Best Overall Value

SearchHive combines search, scraping, and deep research into a single API. No desktop app, no GUI to learn — pure HTTP endpoints that return clean structured data. It's built for developers who want to ship data pipelines, not click through visual builders.

Pricing: Free tier (500 credits), Starter $9/month (5K credits), Builder $49/month (100K credits), Unicorn $199/month (500K credits). One credit costs $0.0001, making cost predictable at any scale.

For businesses currently on Octoparse Professional ($249/month, 250 tasks, 20 concurrent runs), SearchHive's Builder plan at $49/month delivers significantly more throughput with no task limits, no desktop dependency, and automatic proxy rotation included. The Unicorn plan at $199/month covers 500K operations — something Octoparse can't match without enterprise contracts and custom pricing.

Why it beats Octoparse: API-first architecture means no desktop app to install or maintain, programmatic scheduling through any CI/CD system, and direct integration with databases, data warehouses, and analytics tools. ScrapeForge handles JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA solving, and proxy rotation automatically — all included in the per-credit price with no add-on fees.

import requests

API_KEY = "your_searchhive_api_key"
BASE = "https://api.searchhive.dev/v1"

# Scrape a product listing page — returns clean structured data
resp = requests.post(f"{BASE}/scrape", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"}, json={
    "url": "https://competitor.com/products",
    "format": "markdown",
    "extract": {
        "fields": ["product_name", "price", "rating", "availability"]
    }
})

for product in resp.json()["results"]:
    print(f"{product['product_name']}: ${product['price']} ({product['rating']} stars)")

Batch scraping for competitive intelligence across multiple competitors:

# Scrape multiple competitor pages in one request
urls = [
    "https://competitor-a.com/products",
    "https://competitor-b.com/products",
    "https://competitor-c.com/products"
]

resp = requests.post(f"{BASE}/scrape/batch", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"}, json={
    "urls": urls,
    "format": "json",
    "extract": {"fields": ["title", "price", "description", "in_stock"]}
})

# Results come back as a unified dataset ready for analysis
results = resp.json()["results"]
print(f"Extracted {len(results)} products across {len(urls)} sites")

Deep research for market analysis — automatically research a topic and compile structured findings:

# Use DeepDive for comprehensive market research
resp = requests.post(f"{BASE}/deepdive", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"}, json={
    "query": "market size and growth trends for electric vehicle charging infrastructure 2026",
    "depth": "comprehensive",
    "sources": 15
})

research = resp.json()
print(f"Found {len(research['findings'])} key findings from {len(research['sources'])} sources")

Read our ScrapeForge API tutorial for advanced extraction patterns and batch processing workflows.

2. Apify

Apify runs "actors" — pre-built or custom scraping containers on their cloud platform. The actor ecosystem is the standout feature: 1,500+ ready-made scrapers for common sites like LinkedIn, Google Maps, Amazon, and Indeed. If someone has already built the scraper you need, Apify saves enormous development time.

Pricing: Free (10 compute units), Starter $49/month (100K results), Advanced $149/month, Business $499/month.

Best for: Teams that want pre-built scrapers without writing extraction logic from scratch, or those building custom actors with Node.js/Python.

Downside: You're renting compute time, not paying per page — costs can be unpredictable with complex or long-running actors. The actor model adds a layer of abstraction that pure API tools skip.

3. Mozenda

Enterprise-focused scraping with a visual builder and strong data transformation features. Used by large enterprises for market research, competitive intelligence, and lead generation. The platform emphasizes data quality and validation workflows.

Pricing: Custom — contact sales. Typically starts at several hundred dollars per month and scales into the thousands for high-volume use.

Best for: Large enterprises that need a vendor-managed solution with dedicated support, compliance features, and data governance tools.

Downside: No transparent pricing. Long sales cycles. Overkill and overpriced for small-to-mid teams. The visual builder approach shares the same limitations as Octoparse at scale.

4. Import.io

No-code data extraction with a focus on turning web data into structured datasets. Offers both a visual builder for non-technical users and API access for programmatic integration. The platform includes data transformation and scheduling features.

Pricing: Starts at $299/month for the Professional plan. Enterprise plans with custom pricing available.

Best for: Business analysts and data teams who want to build extraction workflows without writing code, but need API access for downstream consumption.

Downside: Expensive for what it does. The $299/month entry point is higher than most API-first competitors that offer more flexibility. Limited customization compared to tools like SearchHive or ScraperAPI.

5. ParseHub

Desktop application (like Octoparse) with cloud processing capabilities. Handles dynamic content, JavaScript rendering, infinite scroll, and complex pagination. The learning curve is moderate — more complex than Browse AI, less complex than Scrapy.

Pricing: Free (5 projects, public use only), Standard $189/month (30 projects), Enterprise custom.

Best for: Teams that prefer a visual point-and-click interface similar to Octoparse but want more robust JavaScript handling and a cleaner modern UI.

Downside: Still a desktop-first architecture. Free tier requires making your data public. Cloud concurrency limits on lower plans restrict scaling. No free API access on the standard plan.

6. Diffbot

AI-powered extraction that automatically identifies and structures web content — articles, products, discussions, events, and more. Instead of defining extraction rules, you point Diffbot at a URL and it figures out the structure. Backed by a large knowledge graph.

Pricing: Free trial with limited queries, then custom enterprise pricing starting around $300/month.

Best for: Applications that need universal extraction across any website without defining extraction rules — particularly useful for processing heterogeneous data sources at scale.

Downside: Pricing is opaque. Extraction accuracy varies by site complexity. Limited control over exactly what gets extracted compared to rule-based tools. Can struggle with heavily JavaScript-dependent pages.

7. ScraperAPI

Simple proxy-rotation API that handles CAPTCHAs and renders JavaScript. You send requests, it returns raw HTML. The simplicity is the point — it handles the hard parts (proxy management, retries, blocking) and gives you clean HTML to parse.

Pricing: Hobby $29/month (100K requests), Startup $79/month (500K), Business $249/month (2M), Enterprise custom.

Best for: Developers who want raw HTML and prefer to write their own extraction logic with familiar tools like BeautifulSoup or Cheerio.

Downside: No structured extraction — you get HTML and parse it yourself. You'll need to build your own extraction layer. Extra rendering requests (JavaScript) cost 5-10x more than standard requests.

8. Browse AI

No-code scraper that extracts data from any website using AI. You train it by clicking on elements you want extracted, and it learns the pattern. Supports monitoring, scheduling, and change detection.

Pricing: Free (50 credits/mo), Starter $39/month (2K credits), Professional $99/month (5K credits), Enterprise $249/month (25K credits).

Best for: Non-technical teams and business users wanting quick extraction workflows with minimal setup time.

Downside: Credit system gets expensive at volume. Limited batch processing capabilities compared to API-first tools. Less control over extraction precision. Not suitable for high-throughput data pipelines.

Comparison Table

Recommendation

If your team has any developer capacity, SearchHive is the clear winner over Octoparse. You get 100K operations for $49/month compared to Octoparse's $249/month Professional plan — an 80% cost reduction for comparable or better throughput. The API-first architecture eliminates the desktop app entirely, integrates into any pipeline, and gives you search + scrape + research in a single platform.

The math is straightforward: Octoparse Professional costs $249/month for 250 tasks with 20 concurrent runs. SearchHive Builder costs $49/month for 100K operations with no concurrency limits. That's one-fifth the price for significantly more capacity. Factor in Octoparse's add-on costs (proxies, CAPTCHA solving, custom crawlers) and the savings gap widens further.

For non-technical teams who need a visual builder, Apify offers the best balance of pre-built scrapers and transparent pricing. Browse AI works if you need something quick with zero code and low volume.

For teams currently on Octoparse Professional or Enterprise, switching to SearchHive typically cuts scraping costs by 60-80%. The free tier gives you 500 credits to test — no credit card, no sales call, no demo booking. Compare SearchHive vs Octoparse in detail or check the docs to get started in under five minutes.