Table of Contents
Introduction
Users who need to generate big datasets for investigation and analysis can
scrape data
in several common ways: by coding themselves, turning to public APIs, or
using the automated tools available.
The market of
web scraping
tools is enormous, and to find the one that best matches your needs, you
should know the specifics of each one. Today we are going to speak about
Octoparse and give you a quick run-through of its features.
Octoparse Review in Short
Octoparse software is a free, full-featured client-side data scraping
software that does not require you as the user to know how to code. It is
quite user-friendly with a point-and-click UI, and during operation, it
imitates user behavior. Octoparse takes care of all the complicated
processes behind the screen for the user.
At the same time, the advanced machine-learning algorithm provided by
Octoparse allows you to accurately locate the necessary details right when
you click.
So
everyone who knows
how to browse can use Octoparse without problems.
Octoparse allows data extraction in various formats, from Excel or CSV to
API or even a database.
At present, the easy-to-use tech stack tools Octoparse offers run only on
Windows. It is capable of scraping data from tough, aggressive, or dynamic
web resources with drop-down menus, infinite scrolling, log-in
authentication, AJAX, and more.
Outstanding Features of Octoparse
Octoparse software can provide cloud-based services, which are up to 20
times quicker than local extraction.
About 6 to 20 cloud servers may be involved in extraction tasks, and the
scraping speed grows respectively.
Users can also use proxy servers to conceal their IP address or apply
automated IP rotation to avoid getting their IPs on the black list.
Similarly, the users can create their own API and get data in the format
of XML strings.
Octoparse supports ad blocking, and as a result, the tasks are optimized
because of reduced loading times and HTTP requests.
In addition, to locate web elements with more accuracy, an XPath tool is
offered to the users.
Octoparse visualizes the data extraction process through a workflow
designer, it provides the users with the opportunity to always stay on
top of data parsing.
Whenever you need recurrent data harvesting, you can use Octoparse’s
scheduling feature to do so on a regular basis. This feature allows you
to scrape any site that updates consistently in real-time and schedule
the task to run the process even at 1-minute intervals.
Note: Octoparse is free for an unlimited number of pages if you don’t
use the cloud service. However, if you need to run more complicated
scraping tasks, it offers two more paid options—their Standard and
Professional editions.
Find a comparison of their paid plans in the table below.
| Free Edition | Standart Edition | Professional Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited Web Pages | ||
| Full Featured Service | ||
| Limited number of tasks in the group: 100 | Limited number of tasks in the group: 100 | |
| Cloud servers: 6 | Cloud servers: 14 | |
| Cost: $89 per month when billed monthly or $75 per month when billed annually | Cost: $249 per month when billed monthly or $209 per month when billed annually | |
Octoparse Support Options
| Free Version | Paid Version | |
|---|---|---|
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| Forum/Community | |
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| FAQ/Knowledgebase | |
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| Social Media | |
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| Video Tutorials/Webinar | |
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| Live Chat |  |
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Data you can scrape with Octoparse software
The range of possible data to scrape is quite wide and varied. With Octoparse, you can extract:
Benefits and drawbacks of Octoparse
Our review would not be comprehensive without pointing out the product’s pros and cons. Find them in the table below.| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Clean, user-friendly interface with a simple workflow panel | Some time is required to set up the tool and start the first tasks |
| Ease of use, no need for special knowledge | Customer support is not provided |
| Variable capabilities for research work | Problems are solved with a delay |
| Reasonable pricing |
Conclusion
To conclude, Octoparse software is a rich-featured, reasonably priced solution for scraping web data of various kinds. Using cloud servers allows data extraction 24/7, and data can be stored in the cloud. However, every out-of-the-box solution like Octoparse can be difficult at times to customize to match your business’s specific needs. That is why custom data scraping tools and services might work better for you. DataOx advises our customers and clients to help develop tailor-made data scraping solutions. To find out what will work best for your needs, schedule a free consultation with our expert.
