Instant Data Scraper alternative: Web Scraper vs Instant Data Scraper
Instant Data Scraper is a free extension that detects the main table on a page and exports it. Web Scraper is also free in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and Cloud adds scheduled remote runs, proxies, an API, and delivery when a job has to repeat unattended.
Reviewed October 2026 Every claim below links to a current vendor page.
The job repeats, has to run without you watching it, or spans listing and detail pages across a site.
You need one table off one page today and nothing about it has to run again.
Web Scraper vs Instant Data Scraper: features and pricing
Compare how Web Scraper and Instant Data Scraper handle setup, Cloud automation, integrations, proxies, and scaling. Web Scraper Scale is compared with Instant Data Scraper Free extension, the highest self-service plan each vendor prices publicly.
| CAPABILITY | Web Scraper Scale, $200 per month | Instant Data Scraper Free extension, $0 |
|---|---|---|
| Setup and creation | ||
| Where scrapers are built | Visual sitemap builder in a browser extension Free extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, with no code or desktop application required. | Browser extension Free extension for Chrome and Edge. |
| AI-assisted setup | AI Sitemap Wizard Maps repeated listing data, detects pagination and infinite scrolling, and follows item links to collect fields from detail pages. | Automatic table detection Heuristics pick out the main table or list on the page. |
| Manual selector control | Advanced Sitemap Builder Point and click, AI selector generation for listing and detail pages, and 10+ selector types for data, navigation, and clicks. | Table choice and column edits Switch to another detected table, then rename or remove columns; no selector editor is documented. |
| Logins and site setup | Website State Setup Signs in or sets location, language, or currency before scraping, only when that state is missing, with passwords encrypted in Cloud. | None documented It scrapes the page open in your browser; signing in is up to you. |
| Ready-made starting points | Sitemap Marketplace Ready-made sitemaps maintained by Web Scraper, available at no additional cost. | None No library of ready-made scrapers is offered. |
| Cloud automation | ||
| Cloud execution | Web Scraper Cloud Runs sitemaps created in the Web Scraper extension remotely after sync or import. | None Everything runs in your own browser session. |
| Scheduling | Daily, interval, and custom CRON Intervals as short as 1 minute, with a selectable time zone and driver, proxy, and priority set per schedule. | None There is no scheduler; each crawl is started by hand in your browser. |
| Rendering and execution modes | Full JS and Fast drivers Full JS loads pages in a full browser environment; Fast skips page JavaScript to scrape faster. | Runs in your browser The page renders in your session; there is no driver choice. |
| Retry behavior | Automatic retries of empty or failed pages Retries use a different proxy IP and browser fingerprint, and do not consume URL credits. CAPTCHAs and bot check pages are solved automatically. | Manual Delay and maximum wait time are adjustable, but there is no automatic retry of failed pages. |
| Concurrency model | Concurrent scrapers Starts at 2 concurrent scrapers and scales with no set ceiling; add capacity at any time. A single job can expand to up to 5 concurrent scrapers. | One browser tab Throughput is limited to the session in front of you. |
| Data and integrations | ||
| Data cleaning | Parser, with no code Regex, replace, HTML stripping, virtual columns, and timestamp conversion, previewed on sample records and applied in Cloud. | Rename and filter columns Columns can be renamed or removed; there is no documented way to change values. |
| Data quality checks | Thresholds on every job Minimum records, maximum failed or empty pages, and minimum filled fields, with suggested values from a previous run. | None Only collection statistics are shown during a crawl. |
| API | Cloud API with an OpenAPI description Manage sitemaps, jobs, and schedules, and download results, with code examples for every programming language. | None No API is published. |
| Webhooks | Job status webhooks Sent when a job finishes, stops, or fails, with job and sitemap IDs and an optional custom ID, and retried if your endpoint does not respond. | None No webhooks are published. |
| Data export formats | CSV, XLSX, JSON Each scraping job's data can be downloaded in all three formats. | CSV, XLS, and XLSX Downloaded from the extension at any point during a crawl. |
| Export integrations | Google Sheets, Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, Google Cloud, Azure The complete dataset is sent after each job finishes. | None Files are saved locally; there are no export destinations. |
| Notifications | Email and in-app alerts Alerts when a job fails or misses its data quality thresholds, with email and in-app channels set per alert type. | None No notifications are published. |
| Image and file handling | Image export Downloads images during the scraping job using the Image selector and delivers the files to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob Storage. | None published Image and file downloading is not published as a feature. |
| Scale and pricing | ||
| Plan compared | Scale, $200 per month $2,000 per year billed annually, $167 per month. | Free extension, $0 No paid tiers are published. |
| What the plan fee buys | Unlimited URL credits The fee buys concurrent scraping capacity, and page volume does not change it. | Nothing to buy Capacity is whatever your browser session can complete. |
| Cost per 1,000 URLs no JS, DC proxies | From $0.03 Fast driver on the included datacenter proxies; two scrapers at $200 per month cover about 4.3M URLs. | Runs locally No licence cost, but volume is bounded by one browser session and manual supervision. |
| Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, DC proxies | From $0.05 Full JS driver on the included datacenter proxies; two scrapers at $200 per month cover about 2.2M URLs. | Runs locally Pages render in your browser, with no proxies to choose. |
| Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, Residential proxies | From $0.681 Full JS driver plus residential traffic, sold separately at $2.50 per GB. | Runs locally No proxies are offered. |
| Unused capacity | No credit ceiling Unlimited URL credits leave no balance to forfeit at the end of a cycle. | Not applicable There is no allowance to use or forfeit. |
| Included datacenter proxies | US, GB, and DE datacenter proxies Included at no additional cost. | None Requests come from your own IP address. |
| Residential proxies | Available at $2.50 per GB In 47 locations, billed on bandwidth used. | None No proxy support is published. |
| Third-party fees | Marketplace sitemaps at no extra cost They run on your own plan, with no separate per-result charge. | None No paid add-ons exist. |
| Cloud data retention | 60 days Scraped data stays available to download from Cloud for that period. | Local only Data lives in the browser until you export it. |
1 Proxy traffic is sold separately, so the price is calculated based on a 250 KB page size.
Reasons to choose Web Scraper
The extension is free too
Building, testing, and running sitemaps locally in the browser extension costs nothing and needs no account, with exports to CSV or XLSX, so the comparison is not free against paid until a job has to run unattended.
Web Scraper extensionJobs run without your browser open
Once a sitemap is synced to Cloud, daily, interval, or custom CRON schedules run on Web Scraper infrastructure with proxies and retries handled.
SchedulerMore than the table in front of you
A sitemap follows pagination and links from listing pages into detail pages, and can click tabs and variants, returning one dataset across listing and detail pages.
Web Scraper documentationWeb Scraper Scale vs Instant Data Scraper Free extension
Instant Data Scraper is free and publishes no paid tiers, so this compares a free extension with a paid cloud plan. Web Scraper's own extension is also free; the plan below is what Cloud execution costs.
Web Scraper Cloud · Scale
$200 per month
Or $2,000 per year billed annually, $167 per month. The browser extension is free.
- Capacity
- Unlimited URL credits
- Concurrency
- Starts at 2 concurrent scrapers, scales with no set ceiling; a single job can use up to 5
- Proxies
- US, GB, and DE datacenter proxies included; residential in 47 locations at $2.50 per GB
- Plan limitation
- Capacity grows by adding concurrent scrapers, at a lower price per scraper as you add more; residential proxy traffic is billed on usage
- Cost per 1,000 URLs no JS, DC proxies
- From $0.03
- Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, DC proxies
- From $0.05
- Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, Residential proxies
- From $0.681
Instant Data Scraper · Free extension
$0
No paid tiers are published.
- Capacity
- Whatever one browser session completes
- Concurrency
- One browser tab
- Proxies
- None; requests come from your own IP address
- Plan limitation
- No scheduling, no API, no proxies, and the session has to stay open
- Cost per 1,000 URLs no JS, DC proxies
- Runs locally
- Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, DC proxies
- Runs locally
- Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, Residential proxies
- Runs locally
The two prices do not buy the same unit
There is no price to compare here. The real cost of a free extension is the time someone spends supervising each run and the volume a single browser session can finish. Web Scraper's extension is free too, and Web Scraper Cloud takes over when a job has to repeat unattended.
- Instant Data Scraper publishes no paid tier, so no plan-to-plan comparison is possible.
- 1 Proxy traffic is sold separately, so the price is calculated based on a 250 KB page size.
For grabbing one table off a page you are already looking at, Instant Data Scraper detects it in a click, which suits a one-off pull you will never repeat.
Switching from Instant Data Scraper
Do we have to pay to start?
No. The Web Scraper browser extension is free for unlimited local scraping, including building, testing, and exporting results.
What do we gain by moving?
Scheduled remote runs, datacenter proxies, automatic retries of empty or failed pages, an API, data quality rules, and automated delivery to Google Sheets, Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, Google Cloud, or Azure.
Is setup harder?
The AI Sitemap Wizard maps repeated listing data automatically, and Marketplace sitemaps cover many common targets.
How does data reach our systems?
Results are retrieved through the API or delivered to Google Sheets, Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure after each job. Webhook notifications report job status and identifiers.
See it applied to your use case
Compare Web Scraper with other tools
Most teams shortlist two or three tools. These pages cover the same capabilities and plan tiers.
Try it on the website you want to scrape
Use the 7-day free trial, with no credit card required, to run Web Scraper Cloud on the website you need data from.
This comparison reflects publicly available information and our understanding of the products as of October 2026. Features, pricing, and other details may change over time, so we recommend verifying current information directly with each provider before making a decision. All product names, trademarks, logos, and brands belong to their respective owners and are referenced solely for identification and comparison purposes. No affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement is implied.