Choosing how to scrape

Simplescraper lets you scrape directly in your browser (browser scraping), in the cloud (cloud scraping) or via the API. This gives you flexibility depending on which website you're scraping, how much data you need and how frequently you scrape. In many cases you may find yourself using a combination of each.

This guide explains when to use each.

• Browser scraping runs in Chrome through the extension.

  • You manage it in the extension's side panel.
  • Results appear in seconds while you watch.
  • Pages behind your login work through your own browser session.
  • Runs of up to five pages need no account and use no credits.
  • It suits quick one-off extractions and hands-on scraping where you check the data as it arrives.

• Cloud scraping runs on Simplescraper's servers.

  • You manage it in the dashboard.
  • Scrapes keep running with your browser closed.
  • Recipes run on a schedule, across up to 10,000 URLs per recipe and many recipes at once.
  • Results go to Google Sheets, Airtable, email or a webhook after every run.
  • It suits large-scale collection, scheduled tracking and feeding data into your tools.

• API scraping is cloud scraping called from your own code, with results returned as JSON.

  • Run recipes, extract data from any URL, take screenshots and search Google from your app.
  • Trigger runs from Make or Zapier, or connect an AI assistant through the MCP server.
  • API requests have no concurrency limit.
  • It suits high-volume pipelines and custom integrations.

Compare capabilities

Capability	Browser	Cloud	API
Runs from	Extension	Dashboard	Your code or tools
Scale	One page at a time	Unlimited concurrency	Unlimited concurrency
Save scrape recipes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Scrape in background	No	Yes	Yes
Logged-in scraping	Yes	Yes (with cookies)	Yes (with cookies)
Multi-page	Yes	Yes	Yes
Scheduled runs	No	Yes	Via external triggers
AI Enhance	Yes	Yes	Yes

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