Web Scraping vs APIs: When to Use Each (2026 Guide)
The Data Extraction Dilemma Every developer eventually needs to pull data from the web. Whether it’s monitoring competitor prices, aggregating content, or building a search engine, you have two main options: web scraping and APIs. Each approach has strengths and trade-offs. This guide helps you decide which to use — and when to combine them. What Is Web Scraping? Web scraping means programmatically extracting data from web pages by parsing their HTML. You send HTTP requests, receive HTML responses, and pull out the data you need. ...