ZenRows alternative: Web Scraper vs ZenRows
ZenRows is a scraping API billed in credits per request, where a protected page costs many times a basic one. Web Scraper Cloud returns named fields from selectors you define visually, with CAPTCHA and bot protection bypass included, on a plan priced by concurrent scraping capacity.
Reviewed October 2026 Every claim below links to a current vendor page.
You want structured rows on a schedule and a fee that does not change when a target turns out to be protected.
You call an endpoint from your own code and want cloud browsers for Puppeteer or Playwright on the same credit balance.
Web Scraper vs ZenRows: features and pricing
Compare how Web Scraper and ZenRows handle setup, Cloud automation, integrations, proxies, and scaling. Web Scraper Scale is compared with ZenRows Scale S3, the highest self-service plan each vendor prices publicly.
| CAPABILITY | Web Scraper Scale, $200 per month | ZenRows Scale S3, $999 per month |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | API calls or Browser Sessions Requests come from your own code, or from Puppeteer and Playwright against their cloud browsers. |
| Time to a working scraper | Faster than writing code Point at the data on the live page, or let the AI Sitemap Wizard map it, then check the result in the data preview. | Code, or Extract on prepared sites Custom scrapers are written and tested in your own code; Extract returns fields with no setup on the sites ZenRows has prepared. |
| Skills needed | Browser skills No programming language or HTML parsing to learn. | Programming A programming language and HTTP requests, plus CSS selectors for the CSS Extractor. |
| 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. | Extract, in Beta With extract=auto, structured JSON comes back from any domain ZenRows has prepared, with no selectors or schema to write. |
| 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. | CSS Extractor CSS selectors or XPath expressions are passed with each request, and the matching elements come back as JSON. |
| 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. | Form fill, cookies, and sessions via API Your code logs in with form-fill instructions or a POST request, then sends the returned cookies with later requests. |
| Ready-made starting points | Sitemap Marketplace Ready-made sitemaps maintained by Web Scraper, available at no additional cost. | Maintained extraction per domain Extract keeps a tailored extraction working for each domain ZenRows has prepared, and new domains can be requested. |
| When a website changes | Update a selector Fix the sitemap by point and click and sync it to Cloud, with nothing to redeploy. | Patch your code, or rely on Extract Custom selectors are fixed in your own code; Extract adapts to layout changes on prepared sites. |
| Cloud automation | ||
| Cloud execution | Web Scraper Cloud Runs sitemaps created in the Web Scraper extension remotely after sync or import. | Hosted API and Browser Sessions Requests run on ZenRows infrastructure. |
| Queue, link following, and storage | Built into every job Cloud queues URLs, follows links and pagination, retries failed pages, and keeps results for 60 days. | Batch, with crawling in your code Batch queues URL lists, retries failures, and keeps results for 14 days; following links is done in your own code. |
| 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. | Scheduled Batch jobs One-off, interval, or calendar schedules, with at least 60 minutes between runs. |
| 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. | JavaScript rendering flag A rendered request costs five credits against one for a basic request. |
| 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. | Charged on successful results Failed requests use no credits, and Batch retries transient failures. |
| 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. | 200 concurrent requests The number of requests that can run at once. |
| 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. | Format conversion only Returns Markdown, plain text, or selected elements as JSON; cleaning values happens in your code. |
| 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. | No built-in checks Unmatched fields come back null or are left out; checking results is left to your code. |
| API | Cloud API with an OpenAPI description Manage sitemaps, jobs, and schedules, and download results, with code examples for every programming language. | Fetch, Extract, and Batch APIs Single requests return the page, and Batch jobs can be submitted, scheduled, paused, and rerun through the API. |
| 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. | Batch webhooks An HTTPS callback, optionally HMAC-signed, fires when a Batch run completes. |
| Data export formats | CSV, XLSX, JSON Each scraping job's data can be downloaded in all three formats. | HTML, JSON, Markdown, plain text JSON comes from CSS Extractor, Extract, or output filters, and pages can also be returned as PDF. |
| Export integrations | Google Sheets, Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, Google Cloud, Azure The complete dataset is sent after each job finishes. | Zapier and Make Official apps for automation platforms; no storage destinations are documented. |
| 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. | Usage and billing emails Emails for usage thresholds, used-up quota, usage summaries, and invoices; no alerts for finished or failed Batch runs. |
| 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. | One file per request A request to an image or file URL returns the file to your code at the usual credit cost; nothing is delivered to cloud storage. |
| Scale and pricing | ||
| Plan compared | Scale, $200 per month $2,000 per year billed annually, $167 per month. | Scale S3, $999 per month The top rung of the Scale plan. |
| What the plan fee buys | Unlimited URL credits The fee buys concurrent scraping capacity, and page volume does not change it. | 12.5M credits per month One shared balance, enough for 12.5M basic requests, 2.5M with JavaScript rendering, or 500,000 with JavaScript and premium proxies. |
| 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. | $0.08 A basic request costs one credit. |
| 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. | $0.40 JavaScript rendering costs five credits per request. |
| Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, Residential proxies | From $0.681 Full JS driver plus residential traffic, sold separately at $2.50 per GB. | $2.00 Premium proxies with rendering make a protected request, at 25 credits. |
| Unused capacity | No credit ceiling Unlimited URL credits leave no balance to forfeit at the end of a cycle. | Rolls over once Unused credits carry into the next billing period, then expire. |
| Included datacenter proxies | US, GB, and DE datacenter proxies Included at no additional cost. | Included in the credit cost Proxy selection is a request option rather than a separate line. |
| Residential proxies | Available at $2.50 per GB In 47 locations, billed on bandwidth used. | Included in the credit cost Premium proxies are a request option, at 10 credits per request or 25 with JavaScript rendering. |
| Third-party fees | Marketplace sitemaps at no extra cost They run on your own plan, with no separate per-result charge. | None published No marketplace or per-result add-ons. |
| Cloud data retention | 60 days Scraped data stays available to download from Cloud for that period. | 14 days for Batch results Batch results can be downloaded for that period; single requests return the page directly. |
1 Proxy traffic is sold separately, so the price is calculated based on a 250 KB page size.
Reasons to choose Web Scraper
Build it where the page is
Sitemaps are built in the free extension for Chrome, Firefox, or Edge, with the AI Sitemap Wizard or point and click, then synced to Cloud to run on a schedule.
Web Scraper extensionOne plan, one line item
Scraping, scheduling, datacenter proxies, the Parser, data quality checks, and delivery sit inside the Cloud plan, with no separate proxy or per-result bill to reconcile.
Web Scraper pricingVolume stops moving the invoice
The fee buys concurrent scraping capacity with unlimited URL credits, so a bigger crawl does not raise it, and retries of empty or failed pages cost nothing.
Web Scraper pricingWeb Scraper Scale vs ZenRows Scale S3
Each side is shown at its highest self-service plan with published pricing.
Web Scraper Cloud · Scale
$200 per month
Or $2,000 per year billed annually, $167 per month
- 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
ZenRows · Scale S3
$999 per month
Or $829 per month billed annually.
- Capacity
- 12.5M credits: 12.5M basic or 500K protected requests
- Concurrency
- 200 concurrent requests
- Proxies
- Datacenter and premium proxies included in the credit cost
- Plan limitation
- A protected request costs 25 times a basic one, so effective volume depends on the target
- Cost per 1,000 URLs no JS, DC proxies
- $0.08
- Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, DC proxies
- $0.40
- Cost per 1,000 URLs JS, Residential proxies
- $2.00
The two prices do not buy the same unit
ZenRows prices a basic request and a protected request very differently, so the same page count costs differently depending on the target and features used. Web Scraper charges for concurrent scraping capacity, with unlimited URL credits regardless of target.
- ZenRows figures use the published credit cost of each request type on the compared plan.
- ZenRows returns page content or parsed JSON, so parser work is not counted in either figure.
- 1 Proxy traffic is sold separately, so the price is calculated based on a 250 KB page size.
ZenRows suits teams running Puppeteer or Playwright from their own code, with a remote browser and its request API on one credit balance.
Switching from ZenRows
Do we still need a parser?
No. A sitemap defines the fields, so Cloud returns named columns rather than page content for your code to interpret.
How does the bill change?
A credit meter that charges more for protected pages is replaced by a fixed capacity plan. The fee buys concurrent scrapers with unlimited URL credits.
What about protected targets?
Datacenter proxies for the US, GB, and DE are included, residential proxies in 47 locations are available at $2.50 per GB, and CAPTCHAs and bot check pages are solved automatically.
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.