ScrapingBee vs ZenRows vs Haunt API — Which Web Scraping API in 2026?
69| 70| 71|You need to extract data from websites. You've narrowed it down to a few APIs. But which one actually fits your use case — and your budget?
72| 73|We built Haunt API because we were frustrated with the existing options. Here's an honest comparison so you can decide for yourself.
74| 75|The Short Version
76| 77|| Feature | 81|ScrapingBee | 82|ZenRows | 83|Haunt API | 84|
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | 89|$49/mo | 90|$49/mo | 91|Free (100 req/mo) | 92|
| AI Extraction | 95|No | 96|No | 97|Yes | 98|
| Natural Language Prompts | 101|No | 102|No | 103|Yes | 104|
| Cloudflare Bypass | 107|Yes | 108|Yes | 109|Yes | 110|
| JS Rendering | 113|Yes | 114|Yes | 115|Yes | 116|
| CSS Selectors Required | 119|Yes | 120|Yes | 121|No | 122|
| Pay-per-use | 125|No (monthly) | 126|No (monthly) | 127|$0.01/req | 128|
| RapidAPI Listing | 131|No | 132|No | 133|Yes | 134|
ScrapingBee — Good for Traditional Scraping
139| 140|ScrapingBee is a solid, established option. It handles headless browsers, proxies, and JS rendering reliably. If you already have CSS selectors and just need infrastructure to run them at scale, it works well.
141| 142|Pros
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- Mature and reliable — been around since 2019 145|
- Good documentation and customer support 146|
- Screenshot and PDF generation built in 147|
- Google Search API add-on 148|
Downsides
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- Starts at $49/month for 1,000 credits — expensive for small projects 153|
- You still write and maintain CSS selectors 154|
- No AI extraction — you parse HTML yourself 155|
- Credits expire monthly (use it or lose it) 156|
ZenRows — Anti-Bot Specialist
159| 160|ZenRows focuses heavily on bypassing anti-bot protection. If your main challenge is getting blocked by Cloudflare, PerimeterX, or DataDome, ZenRows has invested heavily in that arms race.
161| 162|Pros
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- Excellent anti-bot bypass rates (~93% success) 165|
- Automatic retries and rotating proxies 166|
- Good for high-volume protected sites 167|
- CSV export and scheduling features 168|
Downsides
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- Starts at $49/month — same minimum commitment 173|
- Still requires CSS selectors or XPath for data extraction 174|
- Anti-bot features are the main selling point — less focused on data structuring 175|
- Pricing scales up quickly for protected pages 176|
Haunt API — AI-First Extraction
179| 180|Haunt takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of sending a URL and CSS selectors, you send a URL and a natural language prompt. The API uses AI to understand the page and extract exactly what you described.
181| 182|import requests
183|
184|resp = requests.post("https://hauntapi.com/v1/extract",
185| json={
186| "url": "https://example.com/products",
187| "prompt": "Extract all product names, prices, and ratings"
188| }
189|)
190|print(resp.json())
191|
192| That's it. No selectors. No parsing. No maintenance when the site redesigns.
193| 194|Pros
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- Free tier — 100 requests/month, no credit card 197|
- Pay per request — $0.01/req on Pro. No monthly commitment. 198|
- Natural language prompts — describe data in English 199|
- Handles JS rendering and Cloudflare automatically 200|
- Works across different sites without code changes 201|
- Available on RapidAPI for easy integration 202|
Downsides
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- Newer product — smaller community and fewer integrations 207|
- AI extraction is slightly slower than raw HTML fetch (~2-5s vs ~1s) 208|
- Not designed for ultra-high-volume scraping (10K+ req/day) 209|
- Less battle-tested on exotic anti-bot systems vs ZenRows 210|
When to Choose What
213| 214|Choose ScrapingBee if:
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- You have existing scrapers with CSS selectors that work 217|
- You need screenshots or PDFs from web pages 218|
- Budget is not a concern and you want a proven solution 219|
Choose ZenRows if:
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- Your #1 problem is getting blocked by anti-bot systems 224|
- You're scraping at very high volume (millions of pages) 225|
- You need enterprise SLAs and dedicated support 226|
Choose Haunt API if:
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- You want to describe data in English, not selectors 231|
- You're building a side project, prototype, or MVP 232|
- You want to start free and only pay when you scale 233|
- You're tired of maintaining brittle CSS selectors 234|
- You scrape multiple different sites with the same code 235|
The Bottom Line
238| 239|ScrapingBee and ZenRows are solid choices for traditional scraping at scale. They've earned their place in the market. But if you're a developer who wants to extract data without maintaining selectors, or you're working on a project that doesn't justify a $49/month minimum, Haunt API offers a genuinely different approach.
240| 241|Try Haunt API free — 100 requests, no credit card
243| Get Free API Key → 244|