
Apify
Octoparse
ParseHub
Diffbot
Scrapy
Data Miner
Zyte
Import. io helps its users find the internet data they need, organize and store it, and transform it into a format that provides them with the context they need.

Firecrawl
Oxylabs
Apify
Bright Data
ScrapeHunt
Scrapy
ZenRows
Web scraping API for sites that block other scrapers

Which is more popular?
Based on our record, import.io seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 2 times since March 2021.
Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.
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| Website | import.io | usestring.ai |
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What each product offers, as listed by its team.


Possible disadvantages
No features have been listed yet.
Walkthroughs and reviews on video.
mobile review extraction using import.io
More videos
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How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.


As answered by people managing import.io and useString.ai.
useString.ai's answer:
String is a New York company building web-data infrastructure, turning the messy public web into accurate, usable data. Web Access is the part that actually gets pages back from sites that block other tools. It’s available as a standalone API and a hosted MCP server.
useString.ai's answer:
It gets through sites that block other scrapers and only bills requests that succeed. In an open benchmark of 17 scraping APIs on 100 bot-protected sites, String had the highest success rate at 98.6%, and the method and raw data are public. It picks the proxy and rendering method for each page itself, so developers don’t manage proxies or retries.
useString.ai's answer:
The best reason is reliability on hard sites: highest success rate in our open benchmark, and blocked requests aren’t billed. There’s nothing to configure, since proxies, rendering and captcha handling are chosen automatically. It returns clean Markdown, HTML or JSON, also offers web search and site mapping, and has a hosted MCP server for agents in Claude and Cursor. Pricing is public, and new accounts get $5 of free credit (about 20,000 fetches), no card needed.
useString.ai's answer:
Developers and data teams building AI agents, data products and pipelines that need live web data, especially from sites with strong bot protection. Typical uses are alternative data, pricing and inventory monitoring, talent and job data, real estate listings, and giving AI agents web access.
useString.ai's answer:
The service runs on managed cloud browsers and a proxy network, with automatic routing per request. The MCP server is open source and written in TypeScript. It exposes a REST API and an MCP endpoint, with SDK-free access from curl, Python and Node.
useString.ai's answer:
YipitData Revelio Labs DataWeave Sachem Head Canary Data Pararius Appsmith
Share your experience with using import.io and useString.ai. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.


Sort of, import.io is a portion. This could also automate tasks on your local computer as well. Source: over 5 years ago
This should be possible. But I think you can do this faster with import.io and google sheets. DM me, we'll figure it out. Source: over 5 years ago
Tracking useString.ai since Nov 2026.
When comparing import.io and useString.ai, you can also consider the following products.

Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.
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Octoparse provides easy web scraping for anyone. Our advanced web crawler, allows users to turn web pages into structured spreadsheets within clicks.
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A web intelligence collection platform and premium proxy provider, enabling companies of all sizes to utilize the power of big data.
Compare Oxylabs to import.io or useString.ai:

ParseHub is a free web scraping tool. With our advanced web scraper, extracting data is as easy as clicking the data you need.
Compare ParseHub to import.io or useString.ai:
