1
Firecrawl
Managed scraping and crawling API that returns clean markdown for LLMs.
Pros
- +LLM-ready markdown out of the box
- +Crawl, scrape, search, extract APIs
- +Generous SDKs
Cons
- -Per-page cost adds up
- -Closed source core
Best Web Scraping Tools
Modern web scraping is less about HTML parsing and more about JS rendering, anti-bot evasion, and turning pages into LLM-ready markdown. Pick based on whether you control the runtime or want a managed API.
2
Apify
Marketplace and platform for hosted scrapers (Actors) with proxies built in.
Pros
- +Huge actor catalog
- +Proxy rotation included
- +Schedules and webhooks
Cons
- -Pricing complexity
- -Lock-in to actor SDK
3
Scrapy
Battle-tested Python framework for large-scale crawls.
Pros
- +Mature and free
- +Strong middlewares
- +Async by default
Cons
- -No JS rendering out of box
- -DIY infra
4
Playwright
Browser automation library you can drive for scraping JS-heavy sites.
Pros
- +Real browser fidelity
- +Multi-language
- +Excellent docs
Cons
- -Resource heavy
- -You operate the runtime
5
Browserbase
Headless browser-as-a-service tuned for AI agents and scraping at scale.
Pros
- +Stealth-tuned browsers
- +Stagehand AI controls
- +Pay per session
Cons
- -Cost at very high volume
- -Newer than Playwright
Related Terms
Concepts you will run into when working with web scraping tools.
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