Web Scraper vs. API: Which one to choose for data extraction?

Web Scraper and APIs are web data extraction tools. Web scraping is generally used for research and data collection, while APIs are more apt for business use cases. Before deciding which option to choose, it is important to understand what each option offers.

It’s a tough choice because either way you go, you lose something. Web scraper is excellent for flexibility and interactivity, but it's a little slow and can be troublesome when the data source updates or is taken down. API has a much faster turnaround time and an endless data archive, but there are limited options on what you can extract from the API due to its design constraints. So which one should you choose?

After weighing all the pros and cons, we've found that web scraping might be a better choice for some people in specific scenarios.

Data scraping vs. API

Analyzing the pros and cons of a web crawler vs. web scraping, we’ve found that web scrapers win in terms of flexibility. API restricts the data that can be extracted from it, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your situation.

For example, let’s say you want to extract data from your customer database to organize it based on employee name. With API, you can only extract the data for employees with a specific department name. You probably don’t want all your customers’ email addresses and password reset ids uploaded to the cloud (if you have an API). So what do you do? You scrape them by hand! Just note that scraping by hand is slower than web scraping, so if speed is most important, go with web scraper.

Security:

You can’t perform SPA or browser-based scraping with an API. Plus, if, for some reason, the owner decides that he doesn't want to allow access to his users’ data anymore, you would have to stop your program immediately. When scraping web pages, you have at least more time before they take them down.

Speed:

This is supposed to be a self-explanatory point. With API, the time it takes to receive data depends on your internet connection speed. It can give you slow response times, making it difficult for your program to continue functioning correctly.

Web scraper and API both have their pros and cons. Which one you choose depends on your specific situation. A web scraper is the right choice if you need extensive data. If speed is most important to you, API is your best option. You can also use API to check your competitors’ data.

The expansion of APIs has enabled new tools that were not possible before. Many tools and services are available for developers today, and more enter the market every day. Many offer useful functionality, but many have been designed as “one size fits all” solutions. The time has come to break out of the one size fits all mold and create separate solutions that meet specific requirements. Web scraping provides the ideal bridge between traditional web-based solutions and API-enabled new tools, bringing together their best features in a single solution.