ScrapingBee Alternatives — Faster, Cheaper Web Scraping APIs

ScrapingBee carved out a solid niche — clean API, decent Python SDK, straightforward rendering. But the pricing model is a problem. Credits drain fast when you need JavaScript rendering, and at $49/month for the first real tier, you're paying a lot for a single capability: scraping.

If your app needs more than just raw HTML extraction — search, structured data, research — ScrapingBee forces you into a multi-vendor stack. Each one with its own SDK, its own billing cycle, its own failure modes.

This guide covers the ScrapingBee alternatives that developers are actually switching to. We're not listing every API on the market — just the ones that solve ScrapingBee's real limitations: cost, scope, and performance at scale.

Key Takeaways

• ScrapingBee charges $49/mo for the first usable tier; credit consumption makes JS rendering expensive
• SearchHive ScrapeForge covers scraping plus search and research from one platform at $29/mo
• ZenRows and ScraperAPI compete directly on scraping but offer nothing beyond it
• Bright Data and Oxylabs dominate at enterprise scale but are overkill for most teams
• The real savings come from consolidating scraping, search, and extraction into a single provider

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How ScrapingBee Works (And Where It Falls Short)

Before comparing alternatives, here's what you're leaving behind:

• Pricing: Free tier gives 1,000 credits/mo. Paid starts at $49/mo for 150,000 credits
• Credit system: A basic HTML scrape costs 1 credit. JavaScript rendering costs 5–25 credits per request depending on page complexity
• Rendering: Headless Chrome with configurable wait times. Works well for SPAs
• Proxy rotation: Included on paid plans. Datacenter proxies by default, residential available at higher tiers
• Extraction: No built-in structured data extraction. You get raw HTML or a rendered page and parse it yourself

The credit system is the core issue. If you're scraping modern sites that require JavaScript rendering — and most commercial targets do — your 150,000 monthly credits might only net you 30,000–60,000 actual scraped pages. That changes the effective price per page significantly.

ScrapingBee also does one thing: scrape. No search API. No structured extraction. No multi-source research. For a full data pipeline, you need at least one more vendor. Read the full comparison

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1. SearchHive ScrapeForge — Best Overall Alternative

SearchHive isn't just a scraping API. It's a three-product suite — SwiftSearch for SERP data, ScrapeForge for web scraping, and DeepDive for deep multi-source extraction — all under one API key and one invoice.

Pricing: Starter plan at $29/mo for 10,000 API credits across all products. That's roughly $0.003 per request — significantly cheaper than ScrapingBee at comparable volume.

Why developers switch:

• Scraping, search, and research in one SDK instead of three separate integrations
• Free tier includes 100 requests/mo with full JS rendering — no credit card required
• Structured data extraction built in, not bolted on
• Clean Python SDK with both sync and async support

from searchhive import SearchHiveClient

client = SearchHiveClient(api_key="***")

# Scrape a single page with JS rendering
page = client.scrape(
    "https://news.ycombinator.com",
    format="markdown",
    render_js=True
)
print(page.content)

# Scrape multiple pages in one call
results = client.scrape_batch(
    urls=[
        "https://example.com/products/1",
        "https://example.com/products/2",
        "https://example.com/products/3",
    ],
    format="markdown"
)

# Search for pages, then scrape the top results
search_results = client.search("best web scraping APIs 2025")
for result in search_results[:3]:
    content = client.scrape(result["url"])
    print(f"{result['title']}: {len(content.content)} chars")

# Deep research — multi-source extraction and synthesis
report = client.research(
    "competitive analysis of web scraping API pricing",
    depth="standard"
)
print(report.summary)

The scrape_batch method alone saves significant development time — batch up to 10 pages per call instead of managing concurrency yourself. And because SwiftSearch is built in, you can search for target pages and scrape them in the same workflow without stitching together two different APIs.

Full documentation at searchhive.dev/docs.

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2. ZenRows — Best for Anti-Bot Bypass

ZenRows specializes in one thing: getting past bot detection. Their API handles Cloudflare, Datadome, PerimeterX, and similar challenges with less configuration than most alternatives.

Pricing: Starts at $49/mo for 250,000 credits. Free tier gives 1,000 credits with anti-bot bypass enabled.

from zenrows import ZenRowsClient

client = ZenRowsClient("YOUR_KEY")
response = client.get(
    "https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/123-Elm-St",
    params={"js_render": "true", "premium_proxy": "true"}
)

Strengths: Anti-bot bypass is genuinely best-in-class. If you need to scrape Amazon, Zillow, LinkedIn, or other heavily protected sites, ZenRows has the highest success rate among mid-tier providers.

Weaknesses: Same single-capability limitation as ScrapingBee. No search, no extraction, no research. The credit system also eats credits fast — premium proxy usage costs significantly more per request. And at $49/mo for the starter plan, you're paying the same price as ScrapingBee for a similar feature set.

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3. ScraperAPI — Simple and Reliable

ScraperAPI takes a "just works" approach. Send a URL, get back rendered HTML. The API handles proxy rotation, CAPTCHAs, and rendering automatically.

Pricing: Starts at $49/mo for 100,000 API credits. Freelance plan at $29/mo gives 30,000 credits. No free tier.

import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "https://api.scraperapi.com",
    params={
        "api_key": "YOUR_KEY",
        "url": "https://example.com",
        "render": "true"
    }
)
print(resp.text)

Strengths: The simplest interface possible — no SDK needed, just HTTP GET with query params. Good documentation. Proxy rotation works reliably for most targets.

Weaknesses: No structured extraction. No batch endpoint. The $29 freelance plan has aggressive rate limiting (5 req/sec). No async SDK — you'll build your own concurrency layer. Like ScrapingBee, it's scraping and nothing else.

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4. Bright Data — Enterprise Power, Enterprise Pricing

Bright Data (formerly Luminati) is the 800-pound gorilla. They own their proxy network — millions of residential IPs worldwide — which gives them unmatched reach for difficult scraping targets.

Pricing: Scraping Browser starts at $4/month plus proxy costs ($8/GB residential data). Custom enterprise deals for large deployments.

Strengths: Largest proxy network in the industry. Web Unlocker handles the toughest anti-bot systems. Covers social media, e-commerce, and government sites that block other providers. Serious enterprise features: data center, residential, mobile, and ISP proxies.

Weaknesses: The pricing model is opaque. You pay for bandwidth and compute separately, which makes cost projection difficult. The dashboard is overwhelming for small teams. Setup complexity is high — expect a multi-day onboarding for anything non-trivial. Customer support is responsive but slow for non-enterprise accounts.

Bright Data makes sense when you're scraping millions of pages from heavily protected targets. For most teams doing thousands of pages per month, it's overkill. You're paying for infrastructure you won't use.

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5. Oxylabs — Strong Enterprise Alternative

Oxylabs competes directly with Bright Data at the enterprise tier. They also operate their own proxy network and offer a scraping API layer on top.

Pricing: Web Scraper API starts around $99/mo for base usage. Proxy pricing varies by type — residential proxies run $10–15/GB.

Strengths: Excellent API reliability and uptime. Good documentation for enterprise use cases. Supports a wide range of scraping scenarios: e-commerce, SERP, social media. AI-powered scraping features are emerging as a differentiator.

Weaknesses: Same opacity problem as Bright Data — pricing depends on target domains, proxy type, and volume. Minimum commitments are higher than mid-market alternatives. The learning curve is steep if you're not already familiar with proxy management.

Oxylabs is a strong choice if you're outgrowing ScrapingBee and need enterprise-grade reliability. But you'll trade simplicity for power, and your monthly bill will multiply.

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6. ScrapeStack — Budget Static Scraping

ScrapeStack is a basic HTTP scraping API. Send a URL, get HTML back. No rendering on the free tier, no advanced features.

Pricing: Free tier: 1,000 requests/mo (no JS rendering). Professional at $24.99/mo unlocks JS rendering. Enterprise at $99.99/mo for higher volume.

import requests

resp = requests.get(
    "http://api.scrapestack.com/v1/scrape",
    params={
        "access_key": "YOUR_KEY",
        "url": "https://example.com",
        "render_js": 1
    }
)
data = resp.json()

Strengths: Cheap at $24.99/mo if you only need static HTML. Simple REST interface.

Weaknesses: JS rendering on the paid tier is inconsistent compared to headless Chrome providers. No proxy rotation on lower plans. No structured extraction. No async SDK. The free tier is too limited for real development since you can't render JavaScript.

ScrapeStack is fine if you're scraping simple, server-rendered pages. For modern web apps, look elsewhere.

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7. ScrapFly — Feature-Rich but Complex

ScrapFly offers a broad feature set: rendering, proxy rotation, screenshots, PDF export, and data extraction — all configurable via API parameters.

Pricing: Free tier: 1,000 credits/mo. Starts at $25/mo for 10,000 credits. JS rendering costs 5 credits per request.

Strengths: Screenshots and PDF export built in — rare for scraping APIs. The dashboard UI is well-designed for debugging. Asynchronous scraping API for long-running jobs.

Weaknesses: The credit system is confusing — different features cost different credit amounts, making budgeting unpredictable. Python SDK hasn't been updated recently. Documentation has gaps for advanced use cases. No search capability.

ScrapFly is worth considering if you need screenshots or PDFs alongside your scraping. The credit consumption adds up fast, though.

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8. ScrapeDo — Lightweight Render API

ScrapeDo focuses specifically on JavaScript rendering. It's a headless browser as a service — you pass a URL and get back the fully rendered DOM.

Pricing: Starts at $24/mo for 100,000 API calls. No credit tiers — every request costs the same.

Strengths: Transparent pricing without credit gymnastics. Every request gets JS rendering. Simple token-based auth.

Weaknesses: No proxy rotation. No structured extraction. No batch processing. Essentially a hosted headless Chrome instance — you handle everything else. The API is thin by design, which means more work on your end for production scraping.

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Pricing Comparison

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Which Alternative Should You Choose?

Switch to SearchHive if you want one platform for scraping, search, and research. The ScrapeForge API handles rendering and extraction, SwiftSearch handles SERP data, and DeepDive handles multi-source analysis. At $29/mo, it covers what you'd otherwise pay ScrapingBee $49/mo plus another vendor for search. Compare in detail

Switch to ZenRows if anti-bot bypass is your primary concern. If you're targeting Amazon, LinkedIn, or other heavily protected sites and ScrapingBee keeps failing, ZenRows has the highest success rate among mid-tier options.

Switch to ScraperAPI if you want a drop-in ScrapingBee replacement with a simpler interface. The HTTP-only API is easier to integrate if you don't want another SDK dependency.

Switch to Bright Data or Oxylabs if you're scaling past 1M requests/month and need enterprise proxy infrastructure. The pricing will be higher but the reliability and reach are unmatched.

Switch to ScrapeStack or ScrapeDo if you only need static HTML rendering and want the cheapest option. Both are limited but functional for simple use cases.

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The Real Cost Calculation

Don't compare these providers by starting price alone. The real comparison is what you need for a complete workflow.

If you're building a competitive intelligence tool, for example, you need to search for mentions, scrape the pages, and extract structured data. With ScrapingBee alone, that's two additional vendors. With SearchHive, that's one API call sequence through one SDK.

Three API keys means three integration points, three failure modes, three invoices, and three support channels to manage. One platform means none of that overhead. At smaller scales the dollar difference is modest. At larger scales, the operational complexity becomes the real cost.

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Try SearchHive's free tier — 100 requests with full JS rendering, no credit card required. Run your actual ScrapingBee workload against ScrapeForge and compare the output, speed, and integration effort. The documentation is at searchhive.dev/docs. Full ScrapingBee comparison