SearchHive vs Diffbot — Pricing Compared

Diffbot is one of the oldest web extraction platforms, known for its Knowledge Graph and AI-powered content analysis. SearchHive is a newer entrant that combines search, scraping, and content analysis APIs at aggressive pricing points.

If you're evaluating these two for web data extraction, the pricing gap is substantial. This comparison gives you the numbers to make the right call.

Key Takeaways

• SearchHive is dramatically cheaper across every comparable volume tier
• Diffbot's cheapest paid plan is $299/mo for 250K credits; SearchHive's $49/mo plan includes 100K requests
• Diffbot excels at Knowledge Graph and structured extraction from complex web pages
• SearchHive includes a search API (Google, Bing results) that Diffbot doesn't offer
• Diffbot's credit system is more complex -- different page types consume different numbers of credits

Pricing Comparison Table

At first glance, Diffbot's per-1K pricing at the entry tier ($1.20) looks competitive with SearchHive's Starter plan ($1.80). But the volume differences are enormous: Diffbot requires a $299/month commitment to access its entry paid tier, while SearchHive's Builder plan ($49/mo) gives you 100K requests -- and at scale, SearchHive's per-1K cost drops to $0.40.

What You Get for the Price

Diffbot

Diffbot's plans include access to several products:

• Extract: Single-page content extraction with AI-powered structure detection
• Bulk Extract: Process many URLs at once
• Crawl: Full site crawling with sitemap generation (Plus plan and above)
• Natural Language: Text analysis and entity extraction
• Knowledge Graph: Access to Diffbot's pre-built web knowledge graph

The Free plan includes all products but is limited to 10K credits at 5 requests per minute. The Startup plan ($299/mo) raises the rate limit to 5 requests per second and includes 250K credits.

SearchHive

SearchHive's plans give you access to three APIs:

• SwiftSearch: Programmatic access to Google, Bing, and other search engine results
• ScrapeForge: Web scraping with JavaScript rendering and proxy support
• DeepDive: AI-powered content analysis and structured extraction

All three APIs share the same credit pool, and each plan includes generous rate limits.

Feature Comparison

Code Examples

Diffbot: Extract Page Content

import requests

API_KEY = "your-diffbot-token"
url = "https://example.com/article"

response = requests.get(
    f"https://api.diffbot.com/v3/article",
    params={"token": API_KEY, "url": url}
)

data = response.json()
print(f"Title: {data['objects'][0]['title']}")
print(f"Author: {data['objects'][0].get('author', 'Unknown')}")
print(f"Text: {data['objects'][0]['text'][:300]}...")

SearchHive: Search + Scrape + Analyze

from searchhive import SwiftSearch, ScrapeForge, DeepDive

API_KEY = "your-searchhive-key"
search = SwiftSearch(api_key=API_KEY)
scraper = ScrapeForge(api_key=API_KEY)
analyzer = DeepDive(api_key=API_KEY)

# Step 1: Find relevant pages
results = search.search("machine learning frameworks 2026", num=5)

# Step 2: Scrape the top result
page = scraper.scrape(results[0].url, format="markdown")

# Step 3: Deep analysis
analysis = analyzer.analyze(
    url=results[0].url,
    extract=["title", "summary", "key_entities"]
)

print(f"Title: {analysis.title}")
print(f"Summary: {analysis.summary}")
print(f"Entities: {analysis.key_entities}")

The SearchHive example demonstrates a three-step pipeline (search, scrape, analyze) using a single API key and platform. With Diffbot, you'd need a separate search API provider to achieve the discovery step.

Credit Economics

Diffbot's credit system is nuanced. A single page extraction costs 1 credit for a simple article but can cost more for complex pages, e-commerce products, or discussion threads. This means your actual throughput may be lower than the stated credit allotment.

SearchHive's credit system is simpler: one request equals one credit for both search and scraping operations. DeepDive analysis may consume more credits for complex extractions, but the baseline is more predictable.

When Diffbot Makes Sense

Diffbot is the right choice if:

• You need the Knowledge Graph: Diffbot's KG contains structured data on millions of entities -- companies, people, products, articles. If your use case involves entity resolution or relationship mapping, this is a unique capability
• You need full site crawling: Diffbot's Crawl product (Plus plan at $899/mo) handles site-wide crawling with sitemap generation, something SearchHive doesn't offer
• You're extracting from complex, structured pages: Diffbot's AI has been trained on billions of pages and handles complex layouts well
• Budget is not a constraint: At $299+/month minimum, Diffbot is priced for well-funded teams

When SearchHive Makes Sense

SearchHive is the better choice if:

• You need a search API: Diffbot doesn't offer SERP data -- SearchHive does
• Cost matters: $49/mo for 100K requests vs $299/mo for 250K credits
• You're building an MVP or prototype: 500 free credits vs 10K credits (both are useful, but SearchHive's paid plans are far more accessible)
• You want simplicity: One API key, one dashboard, one credit pool for search + scrape + analyze
• You need programmatic scraping at scale: ScrapeForge handles JS rendering, proxy rotation, and retries out of the box

Total Cost of Ownership

For a team processing 250K pages per month:

• Diffbot Startup: $299/mo = $3,588/year
• SearchHive equivalent: $49/mo (100K) + partial Builder usage = roughly $588-700/year (or upgrade to $199/mo Unicorn for 500K)
• Annual savings with SearchHive: $2,888-3,000/year (80-84%)

For 1M extractions per month:

• Diffbot Plus: $899/mo = $10,788/year
• SearchHive Unicorn: $199/mo (500K) = $2,388/year (need additional credits or scale plan for 1M)
• Annual savings: $7,000-8,000/year

Verdict

SearchHive wins for most developers and startups. Unless you specifically need Diffbot's Knowledge Graph or full-site crawling capabilities, SearchHive delivers equivalent page extraction and content analysis at 60-80% lower cost -- with the added bonus of a built-in search API.

Diffbot's Knowledge Graph is genuinely unique and valuable for specific use cases (entity resolution, competitive intelligence at web scale). But for the majority of web data extraction needs -- search, scraping, and content analysis -- SearchHive provides a more complete, more affordable platform.

Start with SearchHive's free tier (500 credits, no credit card) and compare for yourself. The API documentation includes quickstart guides and integration examples.

Related: /compare/firecrawl | /compare/scrapingbee | /blog/best-web-scraping-api-for-developers