What is a web scraping tool?
Aug 01, 2019 Web Scraping Software There are many software companies out there that provide software that allow you to scrape data without any programming knowledge. Some examples include: Import.io, Diffbot, Portia and our own software, ParseHub. Get scraping now with our free Web Scraping tool - up to 200 pages scraped in minutes. ParseHub is a web based data scraping tool which is built to crawl single and multiple websites with the support for JavaScript, AJAX, cookies, sessions, and redirects. The application can analyze and grab data from websites and transform it into meaningful data.
A web scraper can be easily understood as a tool that helps you quickly grab and turn any unstructured data you see on the web into structured formats, such as Excel, text or CVS. One most recognized value of a web scraping tool is really to free one from unrealistically tedious copy and pasting work that could have taken forever to finish. The process can be automated to the point where the data you need will get delivered to you on schedule in the format required.
There are many different web scraping tools available, some require more technical backgrounds and others are developed by non-coders. I will go into great depth comparing the top five web scraping tools I’ve used before including how each of them is priced and what’s included in the various packages.
So what are some ways that data can be used to create values?
- I’m a student and I need data to support my research/thesis writing
- I’m a marketing analyst and I need to collect data to support my marketing strategy
- I’m a product guru, I need data for competitive analysis of the different products
- I’m a CEO and I need data on all business sectors to help me with my strategic decision-making process.
- I’m a data analyst and there’s no way I can do my job without data
- I’m an eCommerce guy and I need to know how the price fluctuates for the products I’m selling
- I’m a trader and I need UNLIMITED financial data to guide my next move in the market
- I’m in the Machine learning/deep learning field and I need an abundance of raw data to train my bots
There are so many more, literally countless reasons people may need data!
What are some of the most popular web scraping tools?
1. Octoparse
Octoparse is an easy-to-use web scraping tool developed to accommodate complicated web scraping for non-coders. As an intelligent web scraper on both Windows and Mac OS, it automatically 'guesses' the desired data fields for users, which saves a large amount of time and energy as you don't need to manually select the data. It is powerful enough to deal with dynamic websites and interact with any sites in various ways, such as authentication, text input, selecting from drop-down menus, hovering over dynamic menus, infinite scroll and many more. Octoparse offers cloud-based extraction (paid feature) as well as local extraction (free). For precise scraping, Octoparse also has built-in XPath and Regular Expression tools to help users scrape data with high accuracy.
2. Parsehub
Parsehub is another non-programmer friendly software. Being a desktop application, Parsehub is supported in various systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Like Octoparse, Parsehub can deal with complicated web scraping scenarios mentioned earlier. However, though Parsehub intends to offer easy web scraping experience, a typical user will still need to be a bit technical to fully grasp many of its advanced functionalities.
3. Dexi.io
Dexi.io is a cloud-based web scraper providing development, hosting and scheduling services. Dexi.io can be very powerful but does require more advanced programming skills comparing to Octoparse and Parsehub. With Dexi, three kinds of robots are available: extractor, crawler, pipes. Dexi supports integration with many third-party services such as captcha solvers, cloud storage and many more.
4. Mozenda
Mozenda offers cloud-based web scraping service, similar to that of Octoparse cloud extraction. Being one of the “oldest” web scraping software in the market, Mozenda performs with a high-level of consistency, has nice looking UI and everything else anyone may need to start on a web scraping project. There are two parts to Mozenda: the Mozenda Web Console and Agent Builder. The Mozenda agent builder is a Windows application used for building a scraping project and the web console is a web application allowing users to set schedules to run the projects or access to the extracted data. Similar to Octoparse, Mozenda also relies on a Windows system and can be a bit tricky for Mac users.
5. Import.io
Famous for its “Magic” - automatically turning any website into structured data, Import.io has gained in popularity. However, many users found out it was not really “magical” enough to handle various kinds of websites. Besides that, Import.io does have a nice well-guided interface, supports real-time data retrieval through JSON REST-based and streaming APIs and it is a web application that can be run in various systems.
Detailed Feature-by-Feature Comparisons
Conclusion
There isn’t one tool that’s perfect. All tools have their pros and cons and they are in some ways or others more suited to different people. Octoparse and Mozenda are by far easier to use than any other scrapers. They are created to make web scraping possible for non-programmers, hence you can expect to get the hang of it rather quickly by watching a few video tutorials. Import.io is also easy to get started but works best only with a simple web structure. Dexi.io and Parsehub are both powerful scrapers with robust functionalities. They do, however, require some programming skills to master.
I hope this article will give you a good start to your web scraping project. Drop me a note for any questions. Happy data hunting!
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The internet is full of data and information.
Dvdfab for mac free download. However, the data on most websites is often not that easy to access.
For example, if you wanted to collect pricing data from products on Amazon, you’d have to browse through hundreds or thousands of pages that have the data you want.
This process can be easily automated with the use of modern web scrapers.
What is Web Scraping?
Web scraping refers to the process we just described, the extraction of data from a website into a new format.
While web scraping can be done manually, software solutions are often preferred, such as web scrapers.
A web scraper will automate the process and collect multiple data points from thousands of pages in just minutes. You can then download the data as an excel sheet or JSON file for further analysis.
How do Web Scrapers Works?
Web scrapers come in many different shapes and sizes.
Some work on the cloud, some work locally on your machine. Some are user-friendly, some have no UI at all.
As a result, each web scraper can work in way different ways from others.
However, the best web scraper for you would probably have a user-friendly UI that lets you click on the specific data you’d like to extract in order to train the web scraper.
The web scraper would then run on the cloud to extract the data you requested, freeing up your computer’s resources.
Once the data is extracted, you will be able to download it as an Excel or JSON file.
Want to see the process in action? Check out the video below or read our guide on how to scrape any website into an Excel spreadsheet.
How Businesses Use Web Scraping
Software To Scrape Website
The data that web scraping gives you access to can be very valuable. As a result, many businesses use web scraping to improve their services and operations.
For example, web scraping is incredibly common in the real estate industry for market analysis and to build databases of available real estate listing.
Have you ever used one of those convenient comparison shopping websites? These sites rely on web scraping to extract product prices from several sites in order to show you the best deal. They then take a cut of that sale as a commission.
Sewart download for mac. Businesses can also use web scraping for lead generation, to help through a website transition and much more.
Check out our guide on how businesses across many industries use web scraping.
Web Scraping Ideas to Get Started With
So now that you know the basics of web scraping, you might be looking forward to starting your first web scraping project.
However, you might not know where to start. After all, web scraping can be used in many different ways.
You could try to build a simple investment app or try to build a list of leads for a local business.
Fortunately, we have put together a guide on web scraping ideas to get started with which includes steps on how to complete said projects.
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Parsehub Web Scraping
Closing Thoughts
Web scraping gives you unparalleled access to the data from any website on the internet.
However you choose to implement this into your business practices could give your business an edge versus your competitors.