Parsehub Web Scraping

This tutorial demonstrates how you can scrape 2 ecommerce websites in 1 project. Example websites: Amazon.com, Ebay.comBelow are some other tutorials you may. Download ParseHub for FREE to get started web scraping today. Turn any website into a spreadsheet or API.

There are many free web scraping tools. However, not all web scraping software is for non-programmers. The lists below are the best web scraping tools without coding skills at a low cost. The freeware listed below is easy to pick up and would satisfy most scraping needs with a reasonable amount of data requirement.

Table of content

Web Scraper Client

1. Octoparse

Octoparse is a robust web scraping tool which also provides web scraping service for business owners and Enterprise. As it can be installed on both Windows and Mac OS, users can scrape data with apple devices.Web data extraction includes but not limited to social media, e-commerce, marketing, real estate listing and many others. Unlike other web scrapers that only scrape content with simple HTML structure, Octoparse can handle both static and dynamic websites with AJAX, JavaScript, cookies and etc. You can create a scraping task to extract data from a complex website such as a site that requires login and pagination. Octoparse can even deal with information that is not showing on the websites by parsing the source code. As a result, you can achieve automatic inventories tracking, price monitoring and leads generating within fingertips.

Octoparse has the Task Template Mode and Advanced Mode for users with both basic and advanced scraping skills.

• A user with basic scraping skills will take a smart move by using this brand-new feature that allows him/her to turn web pages into some structured data instantly. The Task Template Mode only takes about 6.5 seconds to pull down the data behind one page and allows you to download the data to Excel.

• The Advanced mode has more flexibility comparing the other mode. This allows users to configure and edit the workflow with more options. Advance mode is used for scraping more complex websites with a massive amount of data. With its industry-leading data fields auto-detectionfeature, Octoparse also allows you to build a crawler with ease. If you are not satisfied with the auto-generated data fields, you can always customize the scraping task to let itscrape the data for you.The cloud services enable to bulk extract huge amounts of data within a short time frame since multiple cloud servers concurrently run one task. Besides that, thecloud servicewill allow you to store and retrieve the data at any time.

2. ParseHub

Parsehub is a great web scraper that supports collecting data from websites that use AJAX technologies, JavaScript, cookies and etc. Parsehub leverages machine learning technology which is able to read, analyze and transform web documents into relevant data.

The desktop application of Parsehub supports systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, or you can use the browser extension to achieve an instant scraping. It is not fully free, but you still can set up to five scraping tasks for free. The paid subscription plan allows you to set up at least 20 private projects. There are plenty of tutorials for at Parsehub and you can get more information from the homepage.

3. Import.io

Import.io is a SaaS web data integration software. It provides a visual environment for end-users to design and customize the workflows for harvesting data. It also allows you to capture photos and PDFs into a feasible format. Besides, it covers the entire web extraction lifecycle from data extraction to analysis within one platform. And you can easily integrate into other systems as well.

4. Outwit hub

Outwit hub is a Firefox extension, and it can be easily downloaded from the Firefox add-ons store. Once installed and activated, you can scrape the content from websites instantly. It has an outstanding 'Fast Scrape' features, which quickly scrapes data from a list of URLs that you feed in. Extracting data from sites using Outwit hub doesn’t demand programming skills. The scraping process is fairly easy to pick up. You can refer to our guide on using Outwit hub to get started with web scraping using the tool. It is a good alternative web scraping tool if you need to extract a light amount of information from the websites instantly.

Web Scraping Plugins/Extension

1. Data Scraper (Chrome)

Data Scraper can scrape data from tables and listing type data from a single web page. Its free plan should satisfy most simple scraping with a light amount of data. The paid plan has more features such as API and many anonymous IP proxies. You can fetch a large volume of data in real-time faster. You can scrape up to 500 pages per month, you need to upgrade to a paid plan.

2. Web scraper

Web scraper has a chrome extension and cloud extension. For chrome extension, you can create a sitemap (plan) on how a website should be navigated and what data should be scrapped. The cloud extension is can scrape a large volume of data and run multiple scraping tasks concurrently. You can export the data in CSV, or store the data into Couch DB.

3. Scraper (Chrome)

The scraper is another easy-to-use screen web scraper that can easily extract data from an online table, and upload the result to Google Docs.

Just select some text in a table or a list, right-click on the selected text and choose 'Scrape Similar' from the browser menu. Then you will get the data and extract other content by adding new columns using XPath or JQuery. This tool is intended for intermediate to advanced users who know how to write XPath.

Web-based Scraping Application

1. Dexi.io (formerly known as Cloud scrape)

Dexi.io is intended for advanced users who have proficient programming skills. It has three types of robots for you to create a scraping task - Extractor, Crawler, and Pipes. It provides various tools that allow you to extract the data more precisely. With its modern feature, you will able to address the details on any websites. For people with no programming skills, you may need to take a while to get used to it before creating a web scraping robot. Check out their homepage to learn more about the knowledge base.

The freeware provides anonymous web proxy servers for web scraping. Extracted data will be hosted on Dexi.io’s servers for two weeks before archived, or you can directly export the extracted data to JSON or CSV files. It offers paid services to meet your needs for getting real-time data.

2. Webhose.io

Webhose.io enables you to get real-time data from scraping online sources from all over the world into various, clean formats. You even can scrape information on the dark web. This web scraper allows you to scrape data in many different languages using multiple filters and export scraped data in XML, JSON, and RSS formats.

The freeware offers a free subscription plan for you to make 1000 HTTP requests per month and paid subscription plans to make more HTTP requests per month to suit your web scraping needs.

Web Scraping and APIs.

What do these terms mean? And more importantly, how are they different?

Here at ParseHub, we’ll break down both terms and get to the bottom of these questions.

First, we'll discuss what is web scraping and what is an API.

Then we will discuss what is the difference between between Web Scraping and API.

What is Web Scraping?

Web Scraping refers to the process of extracting data from a website or specific webpage.

This can be done either manually or by using software tools called web scrapers. These software tools are usually preferred as they are faster, more powerful and therefore more convenient.

Once web scrapers extract the user’s desired data, they often also restructure the data into a more convenient format such as an Excel spreadsheet.

With web scraping, a user is able to select any website they’d want to extract data from, build their web scraping project and extract the data.

Want to learn more about web scraping? Check out our in-depth guide on web scraping and what it is.

What Is Web Scraping

What is an API?

An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of procedures and communication protocols that provide access to the data of an application, operating system or other services.

Generally, this is done to allow the development of other applications that use the same data.

For example, a weather forecast company could create an API to allow other developers to access their data set and create anything they’d want with it. Be it their own weather mobile app, weather website, research studies, etc.

As a result, APIs rely on the owner of the dataset in question. They might offer access to it for free, charge for access or just not offer and API at all. They might also limit the number of requests that a single user can make or the detail of the data they can access.

Web Scraping vs API: What’s the Difference?

At this point, you might be able to tell the differences between web scraping and an API. But let’s break them down.

The goal of both web scraping and APIs is to access web data.

Web scraping allows you to extract data from any website through the use of web scraping software. On the other hand, APIs give you direct access to the data you’d want.

Parsehub Web Scraping Software

As a result, you might find yourself in a scenario where there might not be an API to access the data you want, or the access to the API might be too limited or expensive.

In these scenarios, web scraping would allow you to access the data as long as it is available on a website.

For example, you could use a web scraper to extract product data information from Amazon since they do not provide an API for you to access this data.

Closing Thoughts

Parsehub Web Scraping Tool

As you can see, the uses of web scrapers and APIs change depending on the context of the situation you’re in.

Parsehub Web Scraping Tutorial

You might be able to access all the data you need with the use of an API. But if access to the API is limited, or too expensive or just non-existent, a web scraper can allow you to essentially build your own API for any website.

Parsehub Web Scraping Tools

If you would like to learn more web scraping, you can read our beginners guide to web scraping.