5 Best ScrapingBee Alternatives That Actually Work in 2025

Tired of ScrapingBee's 75-credit stealth proxies and 10+ second wait times? Or maybe you heard Oxylabs acquired them and want to explore other options? Whether you're frustrated with hidden costs or just shopping around, you're looking for a web scraping API that beats ScrapingBee where it matters.

The comparison below draws from independent benchmark tests across Amazon, Indeed, GitHub, Zillow, Capterra, Google, and X (Twitter). We're talking real performance data, not marketing fluff.

Where ScrapingBee Gets It Right

Before we roast them, let's acknowledge what works.

AI-Powered Extraction

ScrapingBee's AI extraction parameter is legitimately useful. You type "extract product names and prices" in plain English, and it spits out structured JSON or CSV. No CSS selectors, no XPath headaches. For common extraction patterns, this saves real time.

Solid Performance on Standard Targets

ScrapingBee nailed 99.11% success on Amazon, 99.29% on Indeed, 100% on GitHub, and 99.6% on X. These are mainstream platforms with decent bot protection, and ScrapingBee handles them reliably. Speed was respectable too: GitHub returned in 3.2 seconds, Indeed in 5.6 seconds, X in 9.1 seconds.

Where ScrapingBee Trips Over Itself

The problems show up when you look at defaults and edge cases.

JavaScript Rendering Enabled by Default

Every request burns 5 credits unless you explicitly disable rendering. This isn't a global setting—you need to remember to turn it off for each API call. There's no warning when you accidentally torch credits on static pages. You'll only notice when you check your dashboard and realize you've burned through your allocation 5x faster than necessary.

Stealth Proxy Pricing Spikes

Some domains force stealth proxies at 75 credits per request, regardless of rendering. Capterra dropped to 59% success with 36-second response times and cost $15 per 1,000 requests—a 75x markup over the $0.20 base price.

The documentation doesn't list which domains require stealth proxies. You discover the multiplier only after requests start failing or your credits vanish.

1. Scrape.do

Scrape.do is the fastest and most reliable scraping API tested, delivering 98.19% success rates without default parameter traps or unpredictable pricing spikes.

The platform averaged 4.7-second response time—2.5x faster than ScrapingBee—with near-perfect success on Amazon (99.86%), Indeed, GitHub, Zillow, Capterra, and Google (all 100%).

Pros

• Fastest response times across all domains: Averaged 4.7s vs ScrapingBee's 11.7s. Amazon came back in 6.8s vs 10.6s, Google in 1.6s. When speed determines how many pages you can scrape per hour, that 2.5x difference compounds fast.

• Higher success rate: Hit 98.19% average vs 92.69%, with perfect 100% on 5 out of 7 domains compared to ScrapingBee's 2 out of 6. The gap widens on difficult targets: Scrape.do handled Capterra at 100% while ScrapingBee dropped to 59%.

• Transparent pricing, no default traps: Parameters are disabled by default. You opt in to rendering or premium proxies explicitly. No surprise 5x burn rate because you forgot to flip a switch.

• Better value on protected sites: Difficult domains cost $0.58-$2.90 per 1K requests vs ScrapingBee's $15 spikes on Capterra. Even with rendering and premium proxies enabled, Scrape.do costs less than ScrapingBee's stealth proxy tier.

Cons

• No AI extraction engine: Requires manual parsing with BeautifulSoup or similar libraries. Custom scrapers are available for a handful of popular domains, but there's no plain-English instruction interface like ScrapingBee's AI engine.

ScrapingBee vs Scrape.do

Scrape.do is 2.5x faster on average (4.7s vs 11.7s) and costs less ($0.80 vs $3.90 per 1K). The pricing structure is transparent with opt-in parameters, while ScrapingBee defaults rendering ON and forces stealth proxies on certain domains.

Protected site handling shows the clearest difference: Scrape.do scraped Capterra successfully at $0.58 per 1K, while ScrapingBee struggled to 59% success at $15 per 1K. ScrapingBee offers AI extraction for natural language queries, but Scrape.do requires manual parsing for most use cases.

For teams prioritizing speed, reliability, and predictable costs, Scrape.do eliminates the guessing game around credit consumption. When you're scaling web scraping operations, transparent pricing and consistent performance matter more than fancy AI features you might not need.

👉 Start testing Scrape.do's speed advantage with your toughest targets

2. ScraperAPI

ScraperAPI matches ScrapingBee's success rate (92.70%) but struggles with speed, averaging 15.7 seconds per request. The service hit 99.21% on Amazon and 100% on GitHub, proving reliability on e-commerce targets. But it stumbled badly on Google, dropping to 81.72%—the worst performance on that domain among all providers tested.

Pros

• Comparable success on e-commerce: The 99.21% success rate on Amazon matches production requirements for product scraping. If your primary use case is extracting listings, prices, and reviews from e-commerce platforms, ScraperAPI delivers consistent results.

• Templates for common use cases: Pre-built scrapers exist for SERP, e-commerce, and real estate scraping. These templates handle pagination, rate limiting, and data extraction patterns without requiring you to build from scratch.

Cons

• Slower than ScrapingBee: Averaged 15.7s per request vs ScrapingBee's 11.7s. Indeed took 25.9 seconds, Zillow required 19.4 seconds. When you're scraping thousands of pages, that 34% speed penalty cuts your throughput significantly.

• Most expensive per 1K: At $8.49 average cost per 1,000 requests, ScraperAPI costs more than every other provider tested. Capterra spiked to $36.75 per 1K, making it prohibitively expensive for protected sites that already have low success rates.

• Limited geo-targeting on entry plan: The $49 plan restricts you to US and EU locations. Scraping region-specific content in Asia, Latin America, or other markets requires upgrading to plans starting at $149/month.

ScrapingBee vs ScraperAPI

ScrapingBee is faster (11.7s vs 15.7s) and cheaper on average ($3.90 vs $8.49 per 1K). Both providers include global geo-targeting, but ScraperAPI restricts cheaper tiers to US/EU only.

The Google performance gap is notable: ScrapingBee didn't test Google, but ScraperAPI's 81.72% success rate was the worst among all providers. Both services suffer from unpredictable pricing spikes on protected domains, making budget planning difficult for production scraping operations.

3. ZenRows

ZenRows delivers 92.64% success with 10.0-second response times, making it faster than ScrapingBee but with forced parameter combinations that eliminate cost optimization. The platform ranked as the second-fastest provider overall.

Critically, ZenRows automatically enables both rendering and premium proxies on certain domains with no option to disable, forcing you to spend 25 requests per call regardless of whether cheaper methods would work.

Pros

• Faster than ScrapingBee: Averaged 10.0s per request vs 11.7s, with clear wins on GitHub (2.5s vs 3.2s) and Zillow (3s vs 5.7s). The speed advantage compounds when scraping large datasets or running time-sensitive operations.

• No default parameter traps: Unlike ScrapingBee, ZenRows doesn't enable JavaScript rendering by default. Parameters activate only when the system determines they're required for the target domain, not as a global setting you need to remember to disable.

Cons

• Higher starting price: The $69/month plan costs 41% more than ScrapingBee's $49, but only includes 10K protected results with both rendering and premium proxies enabled. That's enough for testing but not for sustained production scraping.

• Forced parameters on popular domains: ZenRows auto-enables the 25x credit multiplier (render + premium proxies) on certain websites with no opt-out. This creates the same pricing trap as ScrapingBee's stealth proxies, just implemented differently.

• Similar pricing on protected sites: Indeed, Google, and X all cost $7 per 1K requests, comparable to ScrapingBee's $5-15 range when stealth proxies are required. The forced parameter activation eliminates any cost advantage on these domains.

ScrapingBee vs ZenRows

ZenRows is faster (10.0s vs 11.7s) and doesn't enable rendering by default, but both providers force expensive parameter combinations on certain domains. ScrapingBee's stealth proxy tier costs 75 credits; ZenRows forces 25 credits but applies it more broadly.

The starting cost differs significantly: ScrapingBee at $49 vs ZenRows at $69. Protected site costs land in similar ranges ($4-7 per 1K for ZenRows, $5-15 for ScrapingBee), but ZenRows is more upfront about when forced parameters apply. Success rates are nearly identical at 92.69% vs 92.64%.

4. ScrapingAnt

ScrapingAnt offers the cheapest base price at $19/month but catastrophic reliability, failing on over half of all requests tested. The service averaged 45.45% success rate with 32.7-second response times—the slowest among all providers. ScrapingAnt couldn't scrape Capterra at all, failed on GitHub (19.94%), Google (21.2%), Amazon (47.54%), and Zillow (41.2%).

Pros

• Cheapest starting price: At $19 for 100K credits, it costs 61% less than ScrapingBee's $49. For projects with extremely tight budgets or experimental use cases, the low entry point reduces initial commitment.

• Low base cost when it works: On the rare domains where ScrapingAnt succeeds, the cost drops to $0.19 per 1K requests. That's 95% cheaper than ScrapingBee's base rate.

Cons

• Catastrophic success rate: The 45.45% average means requests fail more often than they succeed. ScrapingBee's 92.69% success rate is literally twice as reliable, making ScrapingAnt unsuitable for any production environment where data completeness matters.

• Slowest response times: Averaged 32.7s per request, with Zillow taking 49.9 seconds (the slowest single result measured across all providers), Google 44.6 seconds, and Indeed 40.8 seconds. Even when requests succeed, the speed penalty makes large-scale scraping impractical.

ScrapingBee vs ScrapingAnt

ScrapingBee succeeds twice as often (92.69% vs 45.45%) and responds 2.8x faster (11.7s vs 32.7s). ScrapingAnt's cheaper average cost ($0.76 vs $3.90 per 1K) becomes meaningless when requests fail more than half the time.

Production viability separates these services clearly: ScrapingBee works reliably enough for real applications, while ScrapingAnt's sub-50% success rate on mainstream sites makes it unusable for any workflow that requires consistent data extraction. The only similarity is that both impose severe credit multipliers when advanced features are enabled.

5. ScrapFly

ScrapFly's $30 starting package includes 200K basic requests. Rendering and residential proxies cost 30 credits combined (5 for render + 25 for residential), cutting the effective request count to 6,666 for protected sites. ScrapFly offers AI extraction with LLMs, a dedicated Screenshot API, and integrations with LangChain, LlamaIndex, Zapier, Make, and N8N.

Pros

• Lower starting price: At $30, it costs 39% less than ScrapingBee's $49. Teams with budget constraints can access the platform at a lower entry point, assuming they clear the verification barrier.

• Broader integration ecosystem: Native support for LangChain and LlamaIndex makes ScrapFly attractive for AI-powered scraping workflows. The Zapier, Make, and N8N connections enable no-code automation that ScrapingBee doesn't support.

• Dedicated Screenshot API: Offers full-page captures, element-specific screenshots, viewport customization, and format conversion. ScrapingBee provides basic screenshot functionality, but ScrapFly treats it as a first-class product feature.

Cons

• SMS verification required: You can't test the platform without providing a phone number. Multiple user reports mention getting banned without explanation or detailed reasoning, raising concerns about arbitrary enforcement and service reliability.

• Similar pricing spikes: Averages $4.11 per 1K requests compared to ScrapingBee's $3.90. Both services hide costs until you start scraping specific domains, making budget forecasting difficult.

• Can't verify performance: Testing was blocked by access restrictions, so the reliability and speed claims can't be validated against the same benchmark conditions used for other providers.

ScrapingBee vs ScrapFly

ScrapingBee allows instant testing without phone verification, while ScrapFly gates access behind SMS requirements. Pricing shows similar unpredictability ($3.90 vs $4.11 per 1K average), with both platforms hiding per-domain costs until you start scraping.

ScrapFly offers more integrations (LangChain, LlamaIndex, automation platforms) compared to ScrapingBee's core scraping focus. Screenshot capabilities favor ScrapFly with its dedicated API versus ScrapingBee's basic capture functionality. The trust factor tilts toward ScrapingBee since it's immediately testable, while ScrapFly's ban reports and verification requirements create friction before you can evaluate the actual service quality.

What to Pick?

• For speed and reliability without pricing traps: Scrape.do delivers 98.19% success at 4.7s average with transparent opt-in parameters and no default feature costs. Parameters are disabled unless you explicitly enable them, eliminating surprise credit burns.

• For pre-built templates on mainstream sites: ScraperAPI provides ready-made SERP and e-commerce scrapers that handle common extraction patterns out of the box, though at 15.7s average response time and $8.49 per 1K requests.

• For faster alternative with similar reliability to ScrapingBee: ZenRows hits 92.64% success at 10.0s response time with a clearer cost structure than ScrapingBee's stealth proxy surprises, though the $69 starting price is steep.

• For AI integrations and screenshot needs: ScrapFly offers LangChain/LlamaIndex support and dedicated screenshot API capabilities, but SMS verification requirements and unexplained ban reports create barriers to adoption.

• Skip entirely: ScrapingAnt's 45.45% success rate makes it unusable for production work regardless of the $19 entry price. Failing more than half the time eliminates any cost advantage.

Conclusion

If you're moving away from ScrapingBee, you're probably tired of hidden costs, forced parameters, or unpredictable pricing spikes on protected domains. The benchmark data shows Scrape.do leads on speed (2.5x faster) and reliability (98.19% success) with transparent pricing that doesn't punish you for forgetting to disable default settings.

For teams that need predictable costs and consistent performance across difficult targets like Capterra and Google, choosing a provider with opt-in parameters and no stealth proxy surprises matters more than AI extraction features you might not use. When you're scaling web scraping operations, transparent pricing eliminates budget surprises and lets you focus on extraction logic instead of credit management.

👉 Test how ScraperAPI handles your toughest scraping targets with transparent, predictable pricing