ScrapingBee vs ZenRows vs Haunt API, Which Web Scraping API in 2026?

April 2026 · 6 min read

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?

We built Haunt API because we were frustrated with the existing options. Here's an honest comparison so you can decide for yourself.

The Short Version

ScrapingBee , Good for Traditional Scraping

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.

Pros

• Mature and reliable , been around since 2019
• Good documentation and customer support
• Screenshot and PDF generation built in
• Google Search API add-on

Downsides

• Starts at $49/month for 1,000 credits , expensive for small projects
• You still write and maintain CSS selectors
• No AI extraction , you parse HTML yourself
• Credits expire monthly (use it or lose it)

ZenRows , Anti-Bot Specialist

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.

Pros

• Excellent anti-bot bypass rates (~93% success)
• Automatic retries and rotating proxies
• Good for high-volume protected sites
• CSV export and scheduling features

Downsides

• Starts at $49/month , same minimum commitment
• Still requires CSS selectors or XPath for data extraction
• Anti-bot features are the main selling point , less focused on data structuring
• Pricing scales up quickly for protected pages

Haunt API, AI-First Extraction

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.

import requests

resp = requests.post("https://hauntapi.com/v1/extract",
    json={
        "url": "https://example.com/products",
        "prompt": "Extract all product names, prices, and ratings"
    }
)
print(resp.json())

That's it. No selectors. No parsing. No maintenance when the site redesigns.

Pros

• Free tier , 100 requests/month, no credit card
• Clear paid tier , Starter is £19/month for 5,000 successful public-page requests.
• Natural language prompts , describe data in English
• Fallback fetch paths for JavaScript-heavy and difficult public pages where supported
• Works across many public pages without custom selectors
• Available through direct Haunt signup with REST docs and MCP setup

Downsides

• Newer product , smaller community and fewer integrations
• AI extraction is slightly slower than raw HTML fetch (~2-5s vs ~1s)
• Not designed for ultra-high-volume scraping (10K+ req/day)
• Not a human-verification bypass product; CAPTCHA pages return clean failures

When to Choose What

Choose ScrapingBee if:

• You have existing scrapers with CSS selectors that work
• You need screenshots or PDFs from web pages
• Budget is not a concern and you want a proven solution

Choose ZenRows if:

• Your #1 problem is getting blocked by anti-bot systems
• You're scraping at very high volume (millions of pages)
• You need enterprise SLAs and dedicated support

Choose Haunt API if:

• You want to describe data in English, not selectors
• You're building a side project, prototype, or MVP
• You want to start free and only pay when you scale
• You're tired of maintaining brittle CSS selectors
• You extract structured data from multiple public sites with the same request shape

The Bottom Line

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.