# TL;DR: Web Scraping in 2026 - What Actually Works?

## The Brutal Truth

**DIY scraping is dead for protected sites.** Cloudflare, DataDome, PerimeterX, and reCAPTCHA v3 have won the anti-bot arms race. Building your own infrastructure in 2026 is like reinventing the wheel—except the wheel is made of titanium and requires a PhD in ML.

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## Quick Recommendations

### Just Tell Me What to Use:

| Your Situation | Use This | Monthly Cost |
|----------------|----------|--------------|
| **Learning / Side Projects** | Crawlee (open-source) | $0 |
| **Startup (budget <$500)** | ScrapingBee | $50-500 |
| **Growing Company ($500-2k)** | Oxylabs | $500-2000 |
| **Enterprise / Mission-Critical** | Bright Data | $1000-5000+ |
| **Social Media Scraping** | Apify (pre-built actors) | $100-800 |
| **Cloudflare-Protected Sites** | Oxylabs or Bright Data | $800-2000 |

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## The Tier List

### 🏆 S-Tier (Works on Hard Sites)
- **Bright Data** - 95-99% success on Cloudflare/DataDome. Expensive ($1k+/mo) but worth it.
- **Oxylabs** - 90-95% success. Best value in enterprise tier ($800-1.5k/mo).

### 🥇 A-Tier (Works on Most Sites)
- **ScrapingBee** - 80-90% success on moderate protection. Best dev experience ($600-900/mo for 1M reqs).
- **Apify** - 70-85% with pre-built actors. Great for social media ($300-800/mo).

### 🥈 B-Tier (Works on Unprotected / Lightly Protected)
- **Crawlee** - Best open-source option. 40-60% on protected sites. Free + your infrastructure.
- **Scrapy + Managed Proxies** - Old but gold for custom crawlers. Requires significant dev time.

### 🚫 F-Tier (Don't Bother for Protected Sites)
- **Scrapy alone** - 10% success on Cloudflare. Only for internal/unprotected sites.
- **Selenium/Puppeteer/Playwright alone** - Detected instantly without extensive fingerprint spoofing.

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## Success Rates on Real Sites (Feb 2026)

| Site Protection | Scrapy | Crawlee | Apify | ScrapingBee | Oxylabs | Bright Data |
|-----------------|--------|---------|-------|-------------|---------|-------------|
| **None** | 95% | 95% | 95% | 99% | 99% | 99% |
| **Basic Cloudflare** | 30% | 60% | 70% | 90% | 95% | 98% |
| **Cloudflare Pro** | 10% | 40% | 60% | 85% | 95% | 98% |
| **Cloudflare Enterprise** | 0% | 10% | 25% | 65% | 95% | 99% |
| **reCAPTCHA v3** | 0% | 10% | 60% | 85% | 90% | 95% |
| **DataDome/PerimeterX** | 0% | 5% | 15% | 50% | 88% | 93% |

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## Cost Reality Check (1M Requests/Month)

| Solution | Cost | Real Total Cost (with dev time) |
|----------|------|----------------------------------|
| **Scrapy** | $150-400 | $150-400 + 4-8 weeks dev @ $10k = **$10k-20k** |
| **Crawlee** | $200-500 | $200-500 + 2-4 weeks dev @ $8k = **$8k-16k** |
| **Apify** | $300-800 | $300-800 + 1-2 weeks setup @ $2k = **$2.3k-2.8k** |
| **ScrapingBee** | $600-900 | $600-900 + 1-3 days setup @ $500 = **$1.1k-1.4k** ✅ |
| **Oxylabs** | $800-1500 | $800-1500 + 1-3 days setup @ $500 = **$1.3k-2k** |
| **Bright Data** | $1000-2000 | $1000-2000 + 1-3 days setup @ $500 = **$1.5k-2.5k** |

**Conclusion**: Managed services are cheaper when you factor in developer time, unless you're scraping 10M+ requests/month.

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## Red Flags / Common Mistakes in 2026

### ❌ Don't Do This:
1. **Using Scrapy alone for Cloudflare sites** - You will fail. Save yourself weeks of pain.
2. **Buying cheap proxies from sketchy providers** - IP quality matters more than quantity.
3. **Building your own CAPTCHA solver** - It's 2026. This is a solved problem. Buy a service.
4. **Using residential proxies for everything** - Datacenter proxies work fine for unprotected sites and are 10x cheaper.
5. **Ignoring API rate limits** - Managed services have smart rate limiting. Use it.
6. **Not considering Apify's marketplace first** - Someone might have already built the exact scraper you need.

### ✅ Do This Instead:
1. **Start with Crawlee** (free) to prototype and understand your target.
2. **Identify protection level**: Is it Cloudflare? CAPTCHAs? Try curl/fetch first.
3. **If protected, go straight to managed API** - Don't waste weeks building what exists.
4. **Use ScrapingBee** for general scraping needs (best balance).
5. **Use Bright Data/Oxylabs** only if you're hitting >70% block rates with ScrapingBee.
6. **Check Apify Store first** for popular targets (Instagram, Google Maps, Amazon, etc.).

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## The 2026 Meta

### What Changed Since 2023-2024:
1. **Cloudflare Turnstile** is everywhere now - much harder than older challenges.
2. **reCAPTCHA v3** uses behavioral analysis - can't be "solved" traditionally.
3. **Browser fingerprinting** has evolved - random user agents don't work anymore.
4. **TLS fingerprinting** is mainstream - even your TLS handshake reveals you're a bot.
5. **AI-powered anti-bot** - DataDome and others use ML to detect subtle patterns.

### What This Means:
- **Open-source scrapers struggle** unless you invest heavily in anti-detect tech.
- **Managed services have dedicated teams** fighting the anti-bot war full-time.
- **ROI has shifted** - paying for managed APIs is now cheaper than building in-house.

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## When to Use What

### Use **Crawlee** (Open-Source) If:
- Scraping internal/partner sites (no anti-bot)
- Learning web scraping
- Building custom crawlers for specific workflows
- Budget is $0 and you have dev time

### Use **ScrapingBee** If:
- Scraping moderate-to-hard protected sites
- Want fast integration (API in 10 minutes)
- Budget is $50-1000/month
- Need AI-powered data extraction
- Small to mid-size team

### Use **Oxylabs** If:
- Scraping Cloudflare/DataDome protected sites
- Need enterprise success rates at better pricing
- Volume is 500k-10M+ requests/month
- Budget is $500-2000/month
- Want flexible proxy + API options

### Use **Bright Data** If:
- Scraping the absolute hardest targets
- Failure is not an option (mission-critical)
- Enterprise scale (10M+ requests/month)
- Budget is $1000-10k+/month
- Need compliance guarantees

### Use **Apify** If:
- Scraping popular sites (Instagram, TikTok, Google Maps, Amazon)
- Want pre-built, maintained scrapers
- Need scalable cloud infrastructure
- Don't want to manage servers
- Budget is $100-1000/month

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## The Bottom Line

**For 99% of use cases in 2026:**

1. **Try Crawlee first** (free, 1 day to test)
2. If blocked → **Try ScrapingBee** ($49/mo to start)
3. If still blocked → **Upgrade to Oxylabs** (best value)
4. If STILL blocked → **Use Bright Data** (nuclear option)

**Don't build your own anti-bot infrastructure unless:**
- You're Netflix/Amazon/Microsoft scale
- You have a team of 5+ engineers to maintain it
- You're scraping 50M+ requests/month
- You enjoy pain and suffering

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## One-Sentence Summary

**In 2026, use Crawlee for learning, ScrapingBee for most production scraping, and Oxylabs/Bright Data when ScrapingBee fails - building your own is a waste of time and money.**

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**Last Updated**: Feb 5, 2026  
**See full report**: `web-scraping-frameworks-2026-research.md`
