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shanika Published: February 22, 2023 · 6 minutes read

Are you trying to find a technique to scrape data from websites without being blocked? When websites use request restrictions to avoid automated web scraping, online scraping can be challenging. But don’t sweat it—there is a solution. You can successfully extract the data you need by using a web scraping proxy. In this post, I will discuss the best proxy API for web scraping so you can avoid the headache of managing proxies and concentrate on the data you need.

Do You Really Need Proxies For Web Scraping?

If you’re just getting started with web scraping, you might not be sure whether proxies are necessary. After all, why can’t you just make a series of queries to a web page and acquire the information you require, right?

The quick answer is that it depends on the data you need and the items you are scraping. It might be possible to avoid using proxies if all you want to do is sometimes scrape a few pages. However, using proxies is necessary if you’re scraping heavily. Or if the web page you’re scraping has any kind of anti-scraping protections in place.

Let’s say you’re attempting to scrape pricing information or want to do price monitoring from an online store that often changes prices. The website’s anti-scraping safeguards will probably activate if you make many requests from your IP address. In that case, you will likely get a lot of failed requests. However, using a proxy server allows you to disperse your queries across a wide number of IP addresses. This makes it much more difficult for the website to identify and block your scraping attempts.

Using proxies isn’t a failsafe, of course. Using an unreliable or frequently used proxy can actually hinder your attempts at scraping. This is because certain websites are able to detect and ban proxies. Because of this, it’s crucial to pick your proxies wisely and to use a rotating proxy service that can constantly change your IP address to prevent IP blocks.

What Are The Popular Proxy APIs For Web Scraping?

If you are still reading this post, it is likely that you are looking for a better way to manage proxies so that you won’t have to bother about putting them up and maintaining them yourself. Proxy API for web scraping come in handy in this situation.

Proxy APIs let you access their pool of proxies without having to set them up or manage them manually. They are ideal for folks who lack the technical expertise to manage proxies. Or, for those who don’t want to deal with the headache of doing so.

You can see some of the popular proxy APIs for scraping below:

Zenscrape

Zenscrape is a good proxy API for web scraping

Web scraping problems like IP bans and scalability can be resolved with Zenscrape, a rather well-liked proxy API. With Zenscrape, you can manage scalable operations with a big IP pool that avoids IP bans, from minor one-time uses to significant ongoing operations. What is particularly cool about this? You could also choose a proxy location to display material that has a geo-target. Moreover, automated proxy rotation hides your scraping bot so it won’t get caught up in rate-limiting on a website. You can scrape every aspect of what a user sees on a web page with Zenscrape. This includes places that other scrapers might overlook since it can also do Javascript rendering. And, don’t worry – Zenscrape also supports Vue and React along with all other front-end frameworks.

BrightData (Luminati)

Bright data is a good proxy API for web scraping

With more than 70 million rotating IPs in every nation, BrightData is a major player in the online scraping proxy market providing guaranteed unlimited bandwidth. A variety of proxy kinds, such as rotational, residential, mobile, and data center proxies, are available from them. Although the beginning price of $500 per month makes it one of the priciest choices on this list, its proxies are worth the try for being trustworthy and of the highest caliber.

Oxylabs

Oxylabs has been offering public residential proxy services and scraper APIs to help you gather data at scale.

One of the most significant advantages of using Oxylabs is their impressive pool of over 100 million IPs. With Oxylabs, you’ll have access to multiple proxy types including 4G and residential proxies. Plus, their support team is available 24/7 for any questions or issues you might face.

However, keep in mind that all this comes with a price. Oxylabs’ proxies start at $300 USD per month, and that includes only 25GB of traffic. They also might not be the best choice if you’re just starting out with web scraping or if you’re working on smaller-scale projects.

Smartproxy

Smartproxy offers affordable residential and dedicated data center proxies starting at $12.5 a month. Their proxies are designed for scraping and can scrape web pages without being detected by bots. They support Chrome and Firefox browser extensions, making it easy to access proxies from within your headless browsers. However, you won’t find the web scraping API integration in the scraping proxy plan.

ScrapingBee

ScrapingBee is a web scraping API that has a wide range of smart rotating proxies to make it easier for you to bypass website rate-limiting. The service is affordable with a starting price of just $49 per month. There’s even a free trial available to help you get started.

However, one downside of using ScrapingBee is that they don’t offer 4G or Private IPs within their plans. This is a feature that many other providers do include. Another potential limitation is that the number of concurrent requests that they support is lower than what other providers offer.

Why Should You Consider Zenscrape?

When it comes to choosing the best-scraping proxy for your needs, there are several factors to consider.

BrightData and Oxylabs are premium options that offer high-quality residential and data center proxies with massive IP pools. BrightData, in particular, has one of the largest IP pools available, and both providers offer excellent 24/7 support. However, these premium providers come with a high price tag, which may not be a good choice for everyone.

Smartproxy and Scrapingbee are affordable alternatives to consider. Smartproxy offers both residential and data center proxies at an affordable price, and their browser extension support makes it easy to use. Meanwhile, Scrapingbee offers smart rotating proxies with excellent support, making it a reliable choice.

But when it comes to the best web scraping proxy, Zenscrape stands out for its unique features. With a massive IP pool, automatic proxy rotation, and JS rendering capabilities, it can handle both small and large-scale scraping projects with ease. The support team is also highly rated and provides excellent assistance to users.

If you’re ready to take your web scraping to the next level, give Zenscrape a try.

FAQs

Do I need a proxy for web scraping?

If you are one of those speedy web crawlers, you can reliably crawl a website much more easily if you use a proxy, decreasing the likelihood that you will be blocked or banned significantly.

What is a proxy in web API?

In a web API, a proxy is a middle server that serves as a portal between a client and a web server. It efficiently hides the client’s IP address and offers anonymity and security by sending a page with a simple API call with an API key to the web server and then returning the server’s response to the client.

When should I use proxy API?

The ability to do data transformations, conceal complex calls to many services and cache huge or slow results are some justifications for using an API proxy.

What is a proxy scraper?

Proxy servers are used by web scrapers to disguise their identity and make their traffic appear to be that of regular users.