Best Web Scrapers
In a hurry?
The best social media scraper tool in 2024, as found in our independent testing, is Phantombuster!
Although social media platforms are very important sources of data, particularly when it comes to human-generated content, extracting data from these platforms can be difficult, especially if you need to access large amounts of data that would not be possible with manual data extraction methods.
Web scrapers that specifically support social media platforms will be the best.
We will be sharing the best social media scraping tools that you can use to scrape social media sites in this article.
Many social media scraping tools are on the market for sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. So that you have a complete list of the best, we will be discussing only the tried and tested.
Best Social Media Scraping Tools in 2024
- Phantombuster –
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Winner! - Oxylabs
- Bright Data
- ScraperAPI
- Apify
- Proxycrawl
- Octoparse
- ScrapingBee
- Zyte
- Webscraper
Winner!1. Phantombuster
Recommended Guide: Phantombuster Review
Phantombuster is a data extraction and social media scraping tool that helps sales and marketing teams of all sizes to collect information from LinkedIn and Instagram.
Administrators can also schedule and automate actions like following profiles, liking posts, and sending customized messages.
Get 14 Days FREEPhantombuster can also accept requests and interact with prospects to increase their visibility on the internet.
2. Oxylabs
Recommended Guide: Oxylabs Review
Oxylabs allows you to scrape any website without having to write a single line of code.
All you have to do is use the point-and-click interface.
This social media scraper has one thing that you’ll love: it was designed for the modern web.
It is perfect for scraping social media pages that use JavaScript actions to render their content.
Advanced features include support for proxy and IP rotation, scheduled data collection, and API and Web-hooks.
3. Bright Data
Recommended Guide: Bright Data Review
There are many reasons why you would want to use Bright Data for your web scraping, especially the fact that they are the world’s number one when it comes to being a massive web data platform.
They say they can help their clients with pre-made data sets, as well as data collection, so that you can collect all of the public web data that your company needs, without worrying about whether your competition has caught onto your business strategies are not.
They can also help you with proxy infrastructure, so you can virtually do everything that you need to under one roof.
With their data collection strategies, you can automate and streamline your data collection with maximum flexibility, and zero infrastructure.
This way, you can get quality data in just a couple of minutes from any public website, and the best part is that you can collect it by yourself, and don’t need a code to do so.
They have an easy solution that has been worked on by their developers for a long time, which means that they have done all the hard work on their end so that you can make the most of a streamlined service on yours.
The best part is that their platform is self-service, so you can benefit from their development resources.
If you have any issues at any point, this social media scraper has product managers and developers that are standing by, so that you can talk to them and get the problem solved really quickly.
4. ScraperAPI
Recommended Guide: ScraperAPI Review
ScraperAPI is a proxy API that allows web scraping. It handles headless browsers, bypasses Captchas, and provides proxies.
This makes it easy to access data from social media sites with difficult to scrap. All you need to do is to parse and process the data.
Although it is not an automated tool, it takes care of an essential part of scraping. ScraperAPI was designed to protect against scraping and bot systems.
This allows you to have unlimited access to the data that interests you. In addition, it is very affordable and only charges for successful requests.
5. Apify
Apify is an online platform that automates everything you do through a web browser. Although the term “all your actions” may seem exaggerated, it is clear that social media extractor is one area that Apify covers extensively.
Many Apify tools, known as actors, are available to aid in scraping social media platforms.
These tools include Facebook data scraper and Instagram data scraper as well as YouTube data scraper and X data scraper.
Developers created Apify actors for developers. It works with NodeJS and requires the Apify client library/module n another to use it.
This paid tool provides shared proxy services, but you can also add your own private proxy to prevent blockages.
6. Proxycrawl
Proxycrawl is designed to extract structured data from specific websites. This tool makes scraping simple as you only need to use their APIs to collect data.
You can find a lot of social media scrapers on their site, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as LinkedIn.
Proxycrawl offers extended features. It also provides a proxy API that works well with its extraction API to collect structured data on social media sites that are not covered by their scraper API.
Proxycrawl also offers a proxy service for businesses, as the proxy service cannot be used for personal use.
7. Octoparse
Octoparse was designed for non-programmers. Octoparse is a visual social media crawler and scraping tool that allows you to extract data from sites without coding skills.
To train this scraper, you need to use the tool’s initiative point and click interface.
This tool offers a 2-week free trial. You can use this tool as a cloud-based application or as a desktop program.
In addition, you can use it to scrape social media platforms and has templates.
8. ScrapingBee
ScrapingBee is another top scraping tool. ScraperAPI can be considered a rival to ScrapingBee’s service, as it offers proxy APIs that allow web scraping.
This service offers a proxy API and an extraction tool.
You can also use CSS selectors on any social media website to select data points.
This scraper charges you based on the success of your requests, but it is a more expensive alternative to ScraperAPI.
This tool will not cause you to experience any blockages when extracting data from Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
9. Zyte
Zyte, formerly known as Scrapinghub, made a name for itself and revolutionized the web-scraping industry. It offers a full suite of web scraping tools.
You can create social media scrapers for any social media platform by following the guidance and implementing the information contained on their documentation page.
This service is a combination tool. Zyte was the original developer and maintainer of Scrapy, a popular Python web scraping tool.
Zyte Smart Proxy, a proxy API, is designed to allow you to bypass the anti-bot system of websites.
The Zyte Splash tool and Smart Proxy are a great match if your target website uses JavaScript.
The Scrapy tool is free and open-source, but Smart Proxy, Splash, and Splash tools will cost you extra.
10. Webscraper
Chrome’s Webscraper.io extension allows you to scrape content from social media sites such as comments, user posts, and friend lists.
The Webscraper extension can be used to scrape any data on any social media website.
It works with the same point-and-click interface as other visual scrapers and is optimized for the modern web.
JavaScript-heavy sites can also be scrapped.
In addition, you can create site maps using different types of selectors. This allows you to customize data extraction for different site structures.
11. Jarvee
Jarvee is a top social media automation tool on the market.
It supports the most popular social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Jarvee is well-known for its ability to automate its actions, increasing reach, and rapid growth.
However, many don’t know that it can also scrape social media data like comments, posts, and followers lists.
This social scrapper tool can be used to scrape Facebook and Instagram.
Jarvee, a Windows-based tool, will require running it on a Windows VPS/VM machine.
What are Social Media Scraping Tools?
Social media scraping tools can also be described as web scrapers, which you can use for extracting data from social media websites.
Web scrapers, also known as web scrapers, are web-based automation tools to extract data from web pages.
These bots send requests to web pages and, if they are returned, they parse the pages and extract any data. This is done in an automated way, sending too many requests in a short time.
Nevertheless, it makes it possible to extract your data of interest quickly.
While this may benefit you, it can also cause problems if you send too many requests.
Websites and social media platforms don’t like the idea that you could scrape content from their sites and will block you if caught.
Therefore, your bot must be able to bypass the anti-bot system of the target websites to succeed.
Why Scrape Social Media Platforms?
Social media data is the most comprehensive and dynamic source of information about human behavior.
This data offers social scientists and business professionals new ways to understand individuals, groups, and societies while allowing them to discover the vast wealth of information hidden within the data.
A survey of techniques, tools, and platforms points out that the early business adopters of social media data analysis were typical companies in the retail and finance industries, who applied social media analytics to harness brand awareness, customer service improvement, marketing strategies and even fraud detection.
You might be wondering why anyone would want to scrape social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Of course, each web scraper will have its reasons, but here are the main reasons you should scrape social media websites.
Lead Generation
You can use social media platforms to view the contact information of users, which you can then scrape and use for leads.
LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are the top targets for lead generation and business prospect finding.
LinkedIn and Facebook users have many contacts and professional details that are publicly available.
You can use these details to create leads.
Sentimental Analysis
What does a group think about certain ideas and topics? To find out, all you have to do is to scrape discussions threads and hashtags on the topic and then use that data to perform sentimental analysis.
You can use Twitter to scrape tweets about yourself and perform sentimental analyses to determine if you will be voted.
Marketing and Social Research
Social studies and research are not complete without the use of sentiment analysis.
Social researchers and marketers need data to understand their customers’ needs and opinions about their company and competitors.
Many buyers will use social media to vent their frustrations and praise products.
Social media scraping data can also be used to train Artificial Intelligence systems.
Target Market Segmentation
Wikipedia defines a target market as “an individual, household, or organization that is targeted by an organization and who designs, implements, and maintains a marketing strategy to meet their needs and preferences.”
You can analyze social media data to determine who and when you should market your products and services.
Targeted markets will help you maximize your marketing ROI.
Monitoring Online Branding
Online branding monitoring allows you to hear your customers’ voices, as well as the opinions of your industry KOLs, competitors, and the press.
This is more than just about your product; it’s about your customer service, sales process, social interaction, and other touchpoints where customers interact with your brand.
Identifying Market Trends
It is crucial to identify market trends to adjust your business strategy and keep your business moving with the changing direction of your industry.
Market trend analysis can be achieved with the help of big data automation tools.
It is simply the comparison and tracking of industry influencers, publications, and other data over some time.
How to Scrape Data from Social Media Websites
- Investigate the website: Before beginning the scraping process, it is necessary to understand the layout and content of the website in question. Utilize the developer tools in your web browser to examine the HTML source code of the pages you want to scrape. Look for repeating patterns in the HTML that can be used to locate the data you want to extract.
- Write the code: Use a programming language such as Python, Java, or C# to create a program that sends HTTP requests to the website and parses the HTML response. There are numerous libraries and frameworks available that can simplify the process of writing web scraping code, such as Beautiful Soup for Python or Jsoup for Java.
- Execute the code: Run your web scraper and collect the data. Be sure to test your code and handle any errors that may arise, such as HTTP errors or parsing errors.
- Store the data: Once you have collected the data, you will need to store it somewhere. This could be a file on your computer or a database like MySQL or MongoDB.
It is important to remember that many social media websites have terms of service that prohibit the use of automated tools like the scrapers on this page.
Additionally, some websites may block or rate-limit your IP address if you make too many requests in a short period of time.
Therefore, it is crucial to be mindful of the terms of service of the website you are scraping and to use web scraping responsibly.
FAQs
What is Social Media Scraping?
Social media scraping, also known as social media data mining, involves extracting data from social media platforms.
This data may include user profiles, comments, posts, and other types of content.
Social media scraping is commonly utilized for market research, sentiment analysis, and brand monitoring.
It can also be used to collect data for academic research or to track the dissemination of information on social media.
There are numerous tools and methods that can be employed to scrape data from social media websites, including web scraping software, APIs, and manual data collection techniques.
However, it is essential to be mindful of the terms of service of the websites you are scraping, as many social media websites have terms of service that prohibit the use of automated tools like web scrapers.
Some websites may also block or rate-limit your IP address if you make too many requests in a short period of time.
Is Web Scraping Illegal?
Using a web crawler to extract information from a website is completely legal if it is done for relevant business relations.
However, under special circumstances, it might be in conflict with a specific term of service, or general regulations.
As a result, prior to web scraping, you need to do a bit of research into the local restrictions and regulations around this so that you can make sure that you are on the right side of the law.
What Can I Expect to Pay?
As you can expect from so many web scraper tools to choose from, there is going to be quite a wide margin when it comes to how much you are going to be paying for each one.
There are some web scrapers out there that are going to charge you next to nothing, and then there are others that are going to charge you through the roof.
We think that as a general rule, anywhere that is in the middle of the road is going to be a good fit for you, but just know that some high-quality web scrapers are going to charge you a little bit more than you might be comfortable paying.
Generally speaking, we suggest you stay away from those that are charging next to nothing, because there’s a good chance that their scraping features aren’t all that great.
Is Customer Support Important?
Customer support is incredibly important, not only when it comes to web scraping tools, but for online services in general.
When you are interacting with and using an online service that is ongoing, and is constantly updating and changing, it is really important that you are able to get in touch with the company’s customer support team whenever you need to.
This is because there are many things that could go wrong with a service like this, so being able to talk to somebody about things when they do go wrong is essential.
What Feature Should I Look For?
We think that one feature that you should look for in particular when it comes to companies like these that can help you with social scraper tools is whether they can help you download and export your data or not.
There are lots of companies out there that can help you extract data and store it on the cloud, but there aren’t that many companies that can actually help you download it on your mobile or desktop.
Of course, if you’re someone who is wanting to make excel spreadsheets about relevant website information, you will want to be able to find a company that can accommodate features like this.
Conclusion
You will agree that there are many social media scraping tools available to extract content from social media platforms.
However, they are not all made equal.
I must emphasize that you can develop these social media scraper tools to your needs or you can hire someone to help you with any custom needs for scraping social media.
I hope you will find these social media data extraction tools useful as they have been carefully selected after many tests.