Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

ScrapingBee VS ConvertAPI

Compare ScrapingBee VS ConvertAPI and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

ScrapingBee logo ScrapingBee

ScrapingBee is a Web Scraping API that handles proxies and Headless browser for you, so you can focus on extracting the data you want, and nothing else.

ConvertAPI logo ConvertAPI

High-Performance File Conversion API
  • ScrapingBee Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-12

Web Scraping is hard, scraping at scale can be very challenging.

You have to handle:

  • Javascript rendering ๐Ÿ’ป
  • Chrome headless ๐Ÿ› 
  • Captcha ๐Ÿค–
  • Proxy ๐Ÿ•ต๏ธโ€โ™€๏ธ

ScrapingBee is a simple API that does all the above for you, and much more.

Not present

ScrapingBee

$ Details
freemium $49.0 / Monthly (Freelance / 10,000 searches / 100,000 credits)
Platforms
REST API
Release Date
2019 July

ScrapingBee features and specs

  • Easy to Use
    ScrapingBee provides a simple API that allows developers to scrape web pages without worrying about handling proxies or web browser rendering.
  • JavaScript Rendering
    With built-in JavaScript rendering, ScrapingBee can handle complex web pages that rely heavily on JavaScript for content display, making it suitable for scraping modern websites.
  • Proxy Management
    ScrapingBee automatically manages proxies, meaning developers don't have to deal with proxy rotation, blacklisting, or bans.
  • Rate Limiting Control
    The service offers control over rate limits, making it possible to scrape at a custom speed that suits your needs and prevents being blocked by target websites.
  • Custom Headers Support
    ScrapingBee allows the use of custom headers, enabling users to mimic different browsers or add specific headers required by the target site.
  • Geolocation
    It provides geolocation-based scraping, which is useful for accessing content that is region-restricted.

Possible disadvantages of ScrapingBee

  • Cost
    ScrapingBee is a paid service, and costs can add up depending on the volume and complexity of your scraping needs.
  • Rate Limits
    Even though it offers control over rate limits, there are still predefined limits depending on your plan, which might not suit very high-volume scraping needs.
  • Dependency on External Service
    Relying on an external service means that you are dependent on ScrapingBee's uptime and performance, which may affect your operations if the service faces downtime.
  • Data Privacy
    Using a third-party service for web scraping means sharing your scraping activities with ScrapingBee, which could raise data privacy concerns.
  • Limited Customization
    While ScrapingBee handles many aspects of web scraping for you, it may not offer the level of customization that a self-built scraping solution could provide.

ConvertAPI features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Analysis of ScrapingBee

Overall verdict

  • ScrapingBee is generally considered a good choice for web scraping, especially for users who want to streamline the process and avoid the complexities of managing their own infrastructure. It is well-regarded for its ease of use, reliability, and comprehensive feature set.

Why this product is good

  • ScrapingBee is a popular web scraping service because it provides a simple and efficient way to scrape websites without the need to manage proxy servers or deal with headless browser setup. It offers features like rendering JavaScript, handling CAPTCHAs, and supporting various customization options, making it suitable for different scraping needs.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking to automate data extraction from websites
  • Businesses needing reliable web scraping solutions without investing in infrastructure
  • Users who require JavaScript rendering and CAPTCHA handling in their scraping tasks
  • Projects that require scalable and customizable web scraping options

Analysis of ConvertAPI

Overall verdict

  • ConvertAPI is a reliable and well-documented file conversion service that handles a wide range of formats with strong performance and solid developer support, making it a good choice for teams needing programmatic document processing.

Why this product is good

  • Supports a broad range of file conversions including PDF, Word, Excel, images, and web-to-PDF
  • Offers clean REST APIs with SDKs for popular languages like Python, PHP, Node.js, C#, and Java
  • Good documentation and straightforward integration reduce development time
  • Reliable uptime and reasonable processing speed for most conversion tasks
  • Flexible pricing with a free tier and pay-as-you-go options suitable for varying workloads
  • Provides additional PDF manipulation features such as merging, splitting, watermarking, and OCR

Recommended for

  • Developers building applications that require automated document conversion
  • SaaS platforms needing to offer file conversion features to their users
  • Businesses that process invoices, reports, or contracts in bulk
  • Teams handling web-to-PDF or HTML-to-document generation
  • Startups and enterprises looking for a scalable API-based conversion solution without maintaining their own infrastructure

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ScrapingBee and ConvertAPI)
Web Scraping
100 100%
0% 0
API Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Data Extraction
100 100%
0% 0
PDF Conversion API
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 ScrapingBee and ConvertAPI

ScrapingBee Reviews

We have no reviews of ScrapingBee yet.
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ConvertAPI Reviews

14 Best PDF APIs for Every Business Need
Do you often need to merge multiple smaller PDF files to create a consolidated PDF file? ConvertAPI makes this process easier for developers by helping them combine multiple PDF files into one document. As you use this REST API, youโ€™ll notice a significant reduction in the time and effort that was needed earlier to manage large numbers of PDF files.
Source: geekflare.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, ScrapingBee seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 3 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.

ScrapingBee mentions (3)

  • Self-hosted, simple web browser service โ€“ send URL, get screenshots
    If youโ€™re worried about the security risks, edge cases, maintenance pain and scaling challenges of self hosting there are various solid hosted alternatives: - https://browserless.io - low level browser control - https://scrapingbee.com - scraping specialists - https://urlbox.com - screenshot specialists* Theyโ€™re all profitable and have been around for years so you can depend on the businesses and the tech. *... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Are there any APIs that maintain a database of subscriptions?
    If you really just need the data you can use something like https://scrapingbee.com to scrape the info from the various price pages to make sure your info is always up to date. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Our bootstrapped SaaS just turned 3 and reached $1.5m ARR: the lessons learned.
    Well done! And posting here was a great idea. Not sure I would have found scrapingbee.com otherwise. We will probably become a customer. Signed up for the trial account. Source: almost 4 years ago

ConvertAPI mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of ConvertAPI yet. Tracking of ConvertAPI recommendations started around Dec 2023.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing ScrapingBee and ConvertAPI, you can also consider the following products

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

PDFShift - Convert any HTML documents to high-fidelity PDF using a single POST request

Scraper API - Scale Data Collection with a Simple API.

DocRaptor - As the only API powered by the Prince HTML-to-PDF engine, DocRaptor provides the best support for complex PDFs with powerful support for headers, page breaks, page numbers, flexbox, watermarks, accessible PDFs, and much more

Zyte - We're Zyte (formerly Scrapinghub), the central point of entry for all your web data needs.

PDFLoom - PDFLoom is a versatile PDF conversion API for developers.