With the increasing tightening measures on websites against bots, it is necessary to use tools and technologies to help you get around them. Among the myriad of available tools, ZenRows stands out as a highly effective and reliable web scraping API for developers.
ZenRows enables you to scrape even the most sophisticated websites with its anti-bot bypass toolkit. Unlike individual tools that may struggle to overcome anti-bot measures, ZenRows offers a complete solution. It leverages headless browsers, rotating proxies, User Agents and CAPTCHA bypass, as well as other advanced technologies to ensure successful data extraction from various sources.
With this API, you can make multiple concurrent requests, and it is easy to integrate and compatible with all programming languages, like Ruby, Python, Java, PHP, NodeJS, Go, etc.
At the end of this review on ZenRows, you will have a clear understanding of why this tool is the go-to choice for developers seeking a powerful web scraping solution.
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Residential rotating proxies
A proxy server acts as a link between the user and the internet. It makes it appear as if your requests are coming from a different location and device, and not the one actually in use, as a method to evade anti-bot measures.
There are different kinds of proxies, and the best proxies for scraping are residential. Residential proxies route internet traffic through home IP addresses and are obtained from legitimate residential devices, such as home computers, smartphones, or internet service providers (ISPs), rather than data centers or server farms.
ZenRows offers residential proxies from 190+ countries. That helps you avoid detection and blocking and also allows access to geo-restricted content. Besides that, it dynamically switches between different IP addresses for different requests.
Advanced bypass
ZenRows comes with an advanced bypass suite to bypass anti-bot detection measures.
One such feature is fingerprinting bypass, which works by altering your browser’s fingerprint. It changes your browser’s user agent, your screen resolution, and other settings. This can help you get around websites that are trying to block bot requests based on your browser’s fingerprint.
Another component of this suite is the WAF bypass. This feature helps to overcome the effects of Web Application Firewalls (WAFs). It works by identifying and bypassing the specific rules that are used by WAFs to block web scraping requests. This is done by using a variety of techniques and machine learning.
Anti-CAPTCHA
CAPTCHA is a security measure used by websites to distinguish between human users and automated bots. It typically involves presenting users with challenges or puzzles that are easy for humans to solve but difficult for bots. CAPTCHAs can take various forms, such as distorted or obscured text, image recognition tasks, or interactive puzzles.
ZenRows offers robust anti-CAPTCHA features that help users overcome challenges posed by CAPTCHA mechanisms while web scraping. This helps users avoid disruptions, enhance the success rate of scraping operations, and extract data seamlessly.
Headless browsers
A headless browser allows you to interact with websites programmatically without a GUI (Graphical User Interface). It is like a regular browser, but without all the elements that make it visually appealing like buttons, menu bars, etc. It enables the use of scripts to move through web pages and gather data like a human user.
Its high ability to mimic human users means that it will pause for web content to load and not rush into its activities, that it can handle forms, user authentication, and other JavaScript-based interactions. Headless browsers are also good at cookie management and user agent manipulation.
By doing all of this, headless browsers will prevent you from getting detected as a bot or being blocked. Headless browsers are one of the key offerings of ZenRows that will help you work without getting disturbed.
Self-managing a headless browser requires technical expertise and resources, which could be demanding and time-consuming. It can also be more difficult to scale and troubleshoot than using a managed service. If you do not have the necessary skills or resources, or prefer avoiding the headache of scaling up headless browsers, it is better to use a managed service, and ZenRows helps with this.
Flexible pricing
ZenRows provides affordable pricing plans based on the needs of the user. Whether you are an individual beginner web scraper, a large-scale web scraper, or an enterprise, there is a plan that suits you.
Beginning from $49/month for 250,000 API credits for the developer plan, you can enjoy ZenRows without breaking the bank. Also, if you are confused about what plan to choose, you can begin with a free trial, which provides you with 1,000 API credits.
A key highlight of ZenRows’ pricing structure is that you only get charged for successful requests. If you ever experience an unsuccessful request, it is for free.
Great documentation
ZenRows has excellent beginner-friendly documentation that is clear, concise, and easy to follow. It provides detailed information, including the request and response, the parameters that are supported, and the errors that can occur. The documentation is comprehensive, up-to-date and reflects any changes to the API.
The blog is also a source of important information on different methods of scraping and how to harness web scraping for various purposes and across different industries.
Excellent support
ZenRows has customer support via live chat that is responsive, helpful, and knowledgeable. It is helpful for both beginner developers who are new to the tool and intermediate developers who run into issues while using the tool, as well as pro users who need any sort of assistance.
Conclusion
ZenRows provides all the functionalities you will need — the headless browser, the proxy rotator, the user agent rotator, the CAPTCHA bypass, etc. — in one tool. It is the best web scraping API for bypassing anti-bot detection measures.
With ZenRows, you can focus on using the collated data for your work while it handles the underground work, and you save a massive amount of time during web scraping activities. To begin, head to the ZenRows’ website and join thousands of other users for easier scraping.