API vs Scraping : the best way to obtain the data

Getting accurate and timely data for most projects is critical for businesses, researchers, and developers. There are two main methods for collecting data from the web: using APIs (application programming interfaces) and web scraping — which is better for your project? Each method has its advantages and disadvantages, so it’s critical to understand when and why to use one or the other. In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at both approaches, highlighting the differences, advantages, and some potential challenges.

What Is Web Scraping?

Web scraping involves using automated software tools, known as web scrapers, to collect data from web pages. These tools simulate human browsing behavior, allowing them to navigate websites, click on links, and extract information from HTML content. Web scraping can be used to gather a wide range of data, including text, images, and other multimedia elements.
Techniques for Web Scraping and How does it Work?

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Techniques for Web Scraping and How does it Work?

Web scraping involves using automated processes, including writing code or scripts in different programming languages or tools to simulate human browsing behavior, browse web pages, and capture specific information. These codes or scripts are often referred to as web crawlers, web robots, or web spiders and are common techniques for large-scale data acquisition.

Web scraping can be roughly divided into the following steps:

1. Determine the Target: First, we need to determine the target website or web page to scrape. It can be a specific website or a part of multiple websites. After determining the target, we need to analyze the structure and content of the target website.
2. Send Requests: Through web requests, we can send requests to the target website to get the content of the web page. This step is usually implemented using the HTTP protocol. We can use Python’s requests library to send requests and get the server's response.
3. Parse the Web Page: Next, we need to parse the content of the web page and extract the data we need. Usually, web pages use HTML to organize and display content. We can use Python’s BeautifulSoup library to parse HTML and extract the data we are interested in.
4. Data Processing: After obtaining the data, we may need to process the data, such as removing useless tags and cleaning the data. This step can be done using Python’s string processing functions and regular expressions.
5. Data Storage: Finally, we need to store the extracted data for later use. The data can be saved to local files or stored in a database. This step can be done using Python’s file operations and database operations.

The above steps are just a brief overview of web scraping. In actual development, each step will encounter more complex problems, and the appropriate technology stack should be selected according to the actual situation.

Classification of Web Scraping

Web crawlers can be divided into the following types based on system structure and implementation technology: General Purpose Web Crawler, Focused Web Crawler, Incremental Web Crawler, and Deep Web Crawler. Actual web crawler systems are usually implemented by combining several crawler technologies.

1. General Purpose Web Crawler: Also known as Scalable Web Crawler, the objects to be crawled expand from some seed URLs to the entire Web, mainly for portal site search engines and large Web service providers to collect data. Due to commercial reasons, their technical details are rarely disclosed. This type of web crawler has a large crawling range and quantity, requires high crawling speed and storage space, has relatively low requirements for the crawling order of pages, and usually adopts parallel working methods due to the large number of pages to be refreshed, but it takes a long time to refresh a page. Although there are some shortcomings, general-purpose web crawlers are suitable for search engines to search for a wide range of topics and have strong application value.
2. Focused Web Crawler: Also known as Topical Crawler or Vertical Domain Crawler, it selectively crawls web pages related to predefined topics. Compared with general-purpose web crawlers, focused crawlers only need to crawl pages related to the topic, which greatly saves hardware and network resources. The saved pages are updated quickly due to the small number and can well meet the needs of specific groups of people for specific domain information.
3. Incremental Web Crawler: It refers to crawlers that incrementally update downloaded web pages and only crawl newly generated or updated web pages. It can ensure that the crawled pages are as new as possible to a certain extent. Compared with periodic crawling and refreshing web pages, incremental crawlers only crawl newly generated or updated pages when needed and do not re-download pages that have not changed, effectively reducing data download volume, timely updating crawled web pages, and reducing time and space consumption, but increasing the complexity and difficulty of implementing the crawling algorithm.
4. Deep Web Crawler: Web pages can be divided into surface web pages and deep web pages (also known as Invisible Web Pages or Hidden Web). Surface web pages refer to pages that traditional search engines can index, mainly consisting of static web pages that can be reached via hyperlinks. Deep Web refers to web pages whose content cannot be obtained through static links, hidden behind search forms, and can only be obtained by submitting some keywords. For example, web pages whose content is visible only after user registration belong to the Deep Web. The most important part of the deep web crawler process is form filling, which requires simulating login, submitting information, and other situations.

What is API and API Scraping

An API, or Application Programming Interface, is a set of protocols and tools that allow different software applications to communicate with each other. APIs enable developers to access specific data or functionality from an external service or platform without needing to understand the underlying code. APIs are designed to provide a structured and standardized way to interact with data, making them a powerful tool for data retrieval.

How does API Scraping Operate?

When working with an API, a developer must:

1. Identify the API endpoint, define the method (GET, POST, etc.), and set the appropriate headers and query parameters within an HTTP client.
2. Direct the client to execute the API request.
3. Retrieve the required data, which is typically returned in a semi-structured format such as JSON or XML.

In essence, API scraping involves configuring and sending precise requests to an API and then processing the returned data, often for integration into applications or for further analysis.

How Web Scraping Differs from APIs

Web Scraping vs API Scraping

Usage Risk:

• Highly likely to face bot challenges, with potential legality concerns.
• No bot challenges, no legal risks if compliant with regulations

Coverage:

• Any website, any page
• Limited to the scope defined by the API provider

Development Cost:

• Requires significant time for development and maintenance, with high technical demands and the need to develop custom logic scripts
• Low development cost, easy API integration often supported by provider documentation, but some APIs may charge fees

Data Structure:

• Unstructured data that requires cleaning and filtering
• Structured data that usually requires little to no further filtering

Data Quality

• Quality depends on the quality of code used for data acquisition and cleaning, varying from high to low
• High quality, with little to no extraneous data interference

Stability

• Unstable; if the target website updates, your code also needs updating
• Very stable; APIs rarely change

Flexibility

• High flexibility and scalability, with each step customizable
• Low flexibility and scalability; API data format and scope are predefined

Should I Choose Web Scraping or API Scraping?

The choice between Web Scraping and API Scraping depends on different scenarios. Generally speaking, API Scraping is more convenient and straightforward, but not all websites have corresponding API Scraping solutions. You should compare the pros and cons of Web Scraping and API Scraping based on your application scenario and choose the solution that best suits your needs.

The Biggest Problem Faced by Web Scraping

Web Scraping has always faced a significant problem: bot challenges. These are widely used to distinguish between computers and humans, preventing malicious bots from accessing websites and protecting data from being scraped. Common bot challenges include hCaptcha, reCaptcha, Geetest , FunCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile, DataDome, AWS WAF, etc. They use complex images and hard-to-read JavaScript challenges to distinguish whether you are a bot, and some challenges are even difficult for real humans to pass. This is a common situation in Web Scraping and is challenging to solve.

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Conclusion

Choosing between web scraping and API scraping depends on your specific project needs and constraints. Web scraping offers flexibility and broad coverage but comes with higher development costs and the challenge of bypassing bot detection. On the other hand, API scraping provides structured, high-quality data with easier integration and stability but is limited to the API provider’s scope. Understanding these differences and the potential challenges, such as bot challenges faced in web scraping, is crucial. Tools like CapSolver can help overcome these challenges by providing efficient solutions for captcha bypassing, ensuring smooth and effective data collection.