Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Microlink VS Distill Web Monitor

Compare Microlink VS Distill Web Monitor and see what are their differences

Microlink logo Microlink

Extract structured data from any website

Distill Web Monitor logo Distill Web Monitor

Distill is a web monitoring tool. It can monitor RSS feeds, a webpage or a part of webpage. Alerts in the form of pop-up, audio or emails can be received.
  • Microlink Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-24
  • Distill Web Monitor Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-07

Distill is a web monitoring tool. It can monitor RSS feeds, a webpage or a part of webpage. Alerts in the form of pop-up, audio or emails can be received.

Featured highlights:

• Content selection from any webpage including iframes. • Supported actions: • Push notifications on phone • Pop-up • Audio • Email • SMS • Webhook • Easy to use inbox style Watchlist with label, trash etc. • Conditions for smart actions. • History of previous changes for each monitor. • Powerful expressions to select source content. Supports XPath expression, CSS rule or JavaScript expression to select content. • View highlighted changes.

Microlink features and specs

  • Ease of Implementation
    Microlink provides a straightforward API that is easy to integrate into various applications, enabling users to quickly extract web data.
  • Customizability
    The platform allows users to tailor the extraction process to their specific needs, including modifying data extraction settings and using custom rules.
  • Performance
    Microlink's infrastructure is built for handling large-scale requests efficiently, providing fast data retrieval from various sources.
  • Versatile Data Extraction
    It supports a wide array of data extraction use cases, such as scraping metadata, articles, and other web page elements from different websites.
  • Support & Documentation
    The service offers comprehensive documentation and reliable customer support to help users effectively utilize the platform.

Possible disadvantages of Microlink

  • Pricing Structure
    For smaller projects or individual use, the cost might be prohibitive, as Microlink generally targets larger-scale operations that require frequent data extraction.
  • Limited Free Tier
    The free tier of the service has limitations in terms of the number of requests, which may not be sufficient for users with substantial data needs.
  • Potential Overhead
    Depending on the project's complexity, there might be additional overhead in setting up API requests and handling data management post-extraction.
  • Reliance on Web Stability
    Like any web scraping service, its effectiveness can be impacted by changes in the target websites' structures or anti-scraping measures.

Distill Web Monitor features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Distill Web Monitor features an intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface, making it accessible even for users with limited technical skills.
  • Multi-Platform Support
    It supports multiple browsers and platforms including Chrome, Firefox, and iOS, providing flexibility for users.
  • Customizable Notifications
    Users can tailor notification settings to receive alerts via email, SMS, or push notifications, ensuring they stay informed in real-time.
  • Advanced Monitoring Options
    Offers a range of monitoring options including visual comparison, text recognition, and element-based tracking, catering to various monitoring needs.
  • Free Version Available
    A free basic version of Distill Web Monitor is available, allowing users to try out the service before committing to a paid plan.

Possible disadvantages of Distill Web Monitor

  • Limited Features in Free Plan
    The free version has limited functionalities, such as fewer checks and longer intervals, which may be inadequate for intensive monitoring needs.
  • Pricing
    The cost of premium plans can be relatively high for individuals or small businesses, potentially limiting accessibility for cost-sensitive users.
  • Resource-Intensive
    Running continuous monitoring can consume significant system resources, particularly affecting performance on lower-end hardware.
  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, some of the advanced features and customization options may require a learning curve for less tech-savvy users.
  • Privacy Concerns
    Monitoring sensitive or personal data on some websites could present privacy risks, depending on the sites being tracked and how data is handled.

Microlink videos

Update: Microlink Extensions on NATURAL HAIR | HONEST REVIEW!

More videos:

  • Review - FIRST TIME GETTING MICROLINKS (EXTENSIONS) + REVIEW: ARE THEY WORTH THE PRICE!?

Distill Web Monitor videos

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Microlink and Distill Web Monitor)
Web Scraping
100 100%
0% 0
Monitoring Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Automation
100 100%
0% 0
Website Monitoring
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Microlink and Distill Web Monitor

Microlink Reviews

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Distill Web Monitor Reviews

  1. Great tool to keep track of competitor's website

    One of the best tools I have used to keep track of changes on my competitors website. I love the chrome extension and its ease of use.

    👍 Pros:    Advanced features|Easy to use|Chrome extension available|Sync across all my devices

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Microlink should be more popular than Distill Web Monitor. It has been mentiond 5 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Microlink mentions (5)

  • This weird IFRAME thing wasted my 2 days (and counting...)
    It's a very basic idea. Few days back, I got to know about this tool named 'microlink' which is a free Browser-as-API sdk. One of its feature was that you provide it a url and it will give you a screenshot of that particular page. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Newpipe/yt-dlp stops working
    How do the multiple startups that import YouTube video into their platform work - one's that need the video/audio files? There seems to be a lot of webapps supporting this but I always wondered if they have a goto API for doing this. I myself have used microlink at some points for automated video source extraction. https://microlink.io. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Creating a serverless function to scrape web pages metadata
    Metascraper is baked by Microlink, which uses it internally in its browser automation product. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago
  • Show HN: Till – Unblock and scale your web scrapers, with minimal code changes
    These guys bypass cloudflare https://microlink.io it's open source but it's just more convenient to pay and forget about it. - Source: Hacker News / almost 4 years ago
  • Free for dev - list of software (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.)
    Microlink.io – It turns any website into data such as metatags normalization, beauty link previews, scraping capabilities or screenshots as a service. 250 reqs/day every day free. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago

Distill Web Monitor mentions (2)

  • looking for a specific software
    I haven't used any in recent years so I'm not up to speed with the pros/cons of each, but PageProbe, SiteDelta Watch, and Distill Web Monitor are a few to try. Source: about 3 years ago
  • App monitoring and reading parts of the screen
    I’ve had pretty good luck with the distill web monitor https://distill.io/apps/web-monitor. Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Microlink and Distill Web Monitor, you can also consider the following products

BrowserCat - Easy, fast, and reliable browser automation and headless browser APIs. The web is messy, but your code shouldn't be.

Visualping - Visualping is the easiest to use website checker, webpage change monitoring, website change detector and website change alert software of the web. Read more about Visualping.

Apify - Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.

Wachete - Track web page changes and get notified. Free Sign-up. Have all data in one place

Scrapy - Scrapy | A Fast and Powerful Scraping and Web Crawling Framework

WebSite-Watcher - WebSite-Watcher detects website updates and highlights all changes in the text. WebSite-Watcher monitors web pages, password protected pages, disucssion forums and much more.