Octoparse shines as a top-notch web scraping tool—easy, affordable, and powerful, delivering fast, accurate data extraction for all users, with stellar support! Highly recommended!
- No-Code, Visual Interface
- Powerful Cloud Scraping
- Handles Complex Websites
- Pre-Built Task Templates
- Flexible Data Export
- Limited free plan options exist.
- Hard to scrape some sites.
Price: $99/month
Have you ever needed to collect a lot of data from websites but found it too hard or time-consuming?
I’ve been in that situation, trying to copy and paste information manually—frustrating, right?
That’s when I discovered Octoparse, a tool that promises to make web scraping easy, even for beginners.
But does it really work? Can you use it without coding skills? And is it worth the price?
In this Octoparse review, I’ll share my experience with Octoparse, including what it does well and where it falls short.
Let’s see if it’s the right tool for your data needs!
Please note: You can get Octoparse 8.4 from their official website. It’s compatible with Windows (7, 8, 10) and macOS (10.10 and above) operating systems. However, if you’re using an older Windows XP system or a 32-bit system, you should download Octoparse 7.3.0 instead.
Octoparse Review 2025: An Overview
Octoparse is a handy tool that grabs info from websites for you. Imagine copying data like prices or reviews without typing—it does that! It’s easy to use, even if you don’t know coding.
You just point and click to pick what you want. I’ve tried it—it’s great for small businesses or anyone needing quick data. It’s affordable and saves tons of time, making tough jobs simple!
Octoparse 8.4 is the latest version of the software, which can be downloaded from its official website. It’s suitable for users of Windows 7, 8, or 10 and macOS versions 10.10 and higher.
For older or 32-bit Windows systems (like Windows XP), Octoparse provides an alternative version, Octoparse 7.3.0.
This ensures that users with various system configurations can still access and benefit from Octoparse’s web scraping capabilities.
So, you have options based on your operating system, ensuring compatibility and accessibility for many users.
| Specification | Details |
| Supported Devices | Windows XP, 7, 8, 10, Mac |
| Popular Countries | Worldwide, popular in many countries |
| Supported Languages | English, Japanese (Spanish coming soon) |
| Support | Video Tutorials, Online Support, FAQ, Forum, Knowledge Base |
| Free Trial | 14 days available |
| Pricing | Freemium |
The Core Features That Make Octoparse Powerful
Octoparse is more than just a simple scraper. It’s packed with features designed to handle real-world scraping challenges.
- Point-and-Click Workflow: The intuitive interface auto-detects data on a page. You simply click on the data you want (like a product name, price, or review), and Octoparse builds a scraping workflow automatically.
- Pre-Built Task Templates: This is a massive time-saver. Octoparse offers hundreds of ready-to-use templates for popular websites. Just enter your keywords or URLs (e.g., “laptops” on Amazon), and the template handles the rest.
- Cloud-Based Extraction: On paid plans, your scraping tasks run on Octoparse’s cloud platform. This means faster scraping speeds and the ability to run tasks 24/7 without using your own computer’s resources.
- IP Rotation & Proxies: To prevent websites from blocking your scraping activity, paid plans automatically rotate IP addresses. This makes your scraping more reliable and less likely to be detected.
- Automation & Scheduling: You can schedule your tasks to run at any interval—hourly, daily, or weekly. This is perfect for continuously monitoring prices or tracking new job listings.
- Handles Complex Scenarios: Octoparse can navigate logins, fill out forms, select from dropdown menus, and handle websites with infinite scroll, ensuring you can access data that isn’t immediately visible.
Integration with Zapier
This collaboration opens up a world of possibilities, allowing users to combine web scraping capabilities with a plethora of apps like Google Drive, Google Sheets, Slack, and many others.
Setting up this integration is a breeze:
- Access Zapier on your device, and you’re ready.
- Click the “Create Zap” button to start building your customized workflow. I had a brilliant idea: replacing Google Drive files with new documents processed in Octoparse.
- Here’s how to set up a trigger:
Use the search bar to find and select Octoparse. Connect it with your Octoparse account and configure your trigger.
You can search for the specific Octoparse task you want to trigger by its ID. Don’t worry if this sounds a bit tricky at first.
Octoparse’s documentation has your back, making it a straightforward process. (Tip: Make sure to run the task in the cloud for a smoother experience.)
Select the action app, which, in our example, is Google Docs.
Now comes the fun part: defining parameters and setting up the action:
- The Action event is crucial, so choose the option that best suits your needs.
- Fill in the details for the action in the “Set up action” fields.
The best part? It gets even more accessible with practice.
My second run at creating a new Zap proved to be remarkably smooth. It just takes a bit of getting used to and perhaps a little reading.
Both Zapier and Octoparse have you covered with their tutorials, ensuring that you won’t need to invest a ton of time in research.
How to Install Octoparse?
To install Octoparse on your Windows or Mac device, follow these simple steps:
Step 1- Download Octoparse Installer:
Visit the Octoparse website. The leading installer for your operating system (Windows or Mac).
Step 2- Unzip the Downloaded File:
After the download is complete, unzip the downloaded file.
If you have any active anti-virus software, it’s a good idea to disable it during installation to prevent any interference temporarily.
Step 3- Initiate Installation:
Locate the .exe file (for Windows) or the installation file (for Mac) within the unzipped folder.
Double-click this file to start the installation process.
Step 4- Follow Installation Instructions:
Simply follow the on-screen instructions provided by the installer.
The installation will proceed, and the necessary files will be copied to your device.
Step 5- Log In:
Once the installation is complete, launch the Octoparse software.
Log in using your Octoparse account credentials.
With these steps, you’ll have Octoparse installed and ready to help you extract data from websites.
What Can You Scrape With Octoparse?
With Octoparse software, you can scrape a diverse range of data, including:
- Text, Links, Image URLs: You can extract text content, hyperlinks, and URLs of images.
- Data from Drop-Down Menus: Octoparse allows you to interact with and extract data from website drop-down menus.
- Social Media Content: This includes posts, tweets, images, and comments from various social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
- Retail Information: Octoparse is handy for scraping retail-related data such as product prices, promotions, stock-keeping units (SKUs), product descriptions, and inventory details.
- Job Listings: You can gather job listings based on parameters like job title, location, or other criteria from job listing websites.
- Travel Data: Octoparse can scrape hotel prices, reviews, and ratings from websites like Expedia or TripAdvisor.
- News and Blogs: You can extract news articles, blog posts, and press releases from news websites and blogs.
- And More: Octoparse is versatile and can be used for other data extraction purposes.
For example, suppose you’re interested in tracking product prices on an e-commerce website.
In that case, Octoparse can help you scrape the prices, descriptions, and availability of different products, allowing you to monitor price changes and stock levels over time.
Similarly, suppose you want to collect data about job openings in a specific location.
In that case, Octoparse can automate gathering job titles, company names, and application deadlines from job listing websites, making your job search more efficient.
Who Should Use Octoparse?
Octoparse is a versatile tool that can benefit various individuals and professionals. Here’s a breakdown of who can benefit from using Octoparse:
1. New Businesses:
Pricing is crucial in the business world. New businesses can use Octoparse to scrape pricing data from competitors in real-time.
This helps them stay competitive by adjusting their prices and gaining an edge in the market.
Example: A small e-commerce startup can use Octoparse to monitor the prices of similar products competitors offer. By regularly scraping this data, they can make informed pricing decisions and attract more customers.
2. Digital Marketers:
Digital marketers use data to plan effective and profitable campaigns. Data scraping with Octoparse can expand their dataset, enabling them to create targeted marketing campaigns and choose the right SEO strategies.
Example: A digital marketing agency wants to launch a new ad campaign for a client. By using Octoparse to gather data on consumer preferences from various websites, they can tailor the campaign to match better what potential customers are looking for.
3. Sales Professionals:
Sales professionals need leads to convert into customers. Octoparse can help them extract data from platforms like LinkedIn without any coding. This data can generate high-quality leads for targeted sales and marketing efforts.
Example: A salesperson looking to reach potential clients can use Octoparse to extract contact information and job titles from LinkedIn profiles. This saves time and ensures that the salesperson is reaching the right audience.
4. Researchers:
Research can be time-consuming in the academic world. Octoparse simplifies this process by allowing researchers to scrape data from research paper publishing sites.
It’s a more efficient way to find the information they need.
Example: A graduate student researching climate change can use Octoparse to extract relevant data from scientific journals. This accelerates the data collection process and aids in their research.
My Experience With Octoparse?
As a digital marketer, I use Octoparse to enhance my marketing strategies and gain a competitive edge. Here are some ways I use Octoparse on a daily basis:
1. Market Research:
Octoparse helps me gather data from various online sources. I scrape competitor websites to monitor pricing, product listings, and customer reviews.
This information allows me to adjust our pricing strategy, identify product trends, and understand consumer sentiment.
Example: If I’m managing an e-commerce website, I use Octoparse to track competitors’ prices for similar products. By analyzing this data, I can make real-time pricing adjustments to attract more customers.
2. Content Curation:
Content marketing is crucial, and Octoparse simplifies the process of content curation. I scrape articles, blog posts, and news from relevant websites to stay updated with industry trends.
This curated content helps me create engaging blog posts, social media updates, and newsletters.
Example: When managing a content calendar, I use Octoparse to collect articles from authoritative sources in my industry. This content serves as a valuable resource for creating informative blog posts and social media updates.
3. Lead Generation:
Octoparse is a powerful tool for lead generation. I scrape business directories, social media profiles, and other online platforms to collect potential leads.
This data includes contact information and job titles, allowing me to build targeted outreach campaigns.
Example: When I’m running a B2B marketing campaign. Octoparse helps me extract contact details and job titles from the decision-makers’ LinkedIn profiles in relevant companies. This data forms the basis of personalized email marketing and outreach.
4. SEO Strategy:
Search engine optimization is essential for digital marketing success. I use Octoparse to analyze keyword trends, track search engine results, and extract data from competitors’ websites. This information guides my SEO strategy and helps me optimize our content for better search visibility. To know more, you can follow me on Twitter and learn my insights.
Example: To improve our website’s organic search rankings, I use Octoparse to collect data on keyword rankings and search volume. This data informs our content creation and on-page optimization efforts.
5. Market Monitoring:
I monitor online marketplaces and e-commerce platforms with Octoparse. This includes tracking product availability, prices, and customer reviews. This data helps me identify emerging products and potential partnerships.
Example: When I manage a brand’s presence on Amazon, I use Octoparse to monitor product listings, prices, and customer reviews. This enables me to spot opportunities for launching new products or improving existing ones.
Octoparse: Pricing Options
Octoparse offers flexible pricing to meet the needs of individuals, small teams, and large enterprises.
1. Free Plan
Perfect for small and simple projects.
- Price: Free
- Features:
- 10 tasks
- Local device task execution
- Up to 10K data rows per export
- Unlimited pages per run
- Limited support
2. Standard Plan
Great for small teams.
- Price: $99/month
- Features:
- All Free Plan features, plus:
- 100 tasks
- Up to 6 concurrent cloud processes
- IP rotation
- Local boost mode
- 100+ preset task templates
- IP proxies and CAPTCHA solving
- Image and file downloads
- Automatic exports and task scheduling
- API access
- Standard support
3. Professional Plan
Ideal for medium-sized businesses.
- Price: $249/month
- Features:
- All Standard Plan features, plus:
- 250 tasks
- Up to 20 concurrent cloud processes
- Advanced API
- Auto backup to the cloud
- Priority support
- Task review and 1-on-1 training
3. Enterprise Plan
Built for large enterprises with advanced scraping needs.
- Custom pricing – Contact Sales
- Features:
- All Professional Plan features, plus:
- 750+ tasks
- 40+ concurrent cloud processes
- Increased capacity
- Online web console
- Team collaboration (1 admin, 2 agent seats)
- Dedicated success manager.
How Is The Interface Of Octoparse?
When I explored Octoparse, I was pleasantly surprised by its user-friendly interface, which reminded me of ParseHub, another web scraping tool.
The tool’s interface is designed to simplify the data extraction process, making it accessible to users without extensive technical knowledge.
One of the standout features of Octoparse is the built-in browser view. This feature allows you to interact with web pages directly within the tool, which can be a real-time saver.
The click-and-scrape method is a breeze, and you can easily select the specific data you want to extract without writing a single line of code. This simplicity makes Octoparse suitable for beginners in web scraping, like me.
Octoparse offers a unique feature called task templates, which are unfortunately available only in the paid plans. These templates cover various popular websites, including Amazon, Google Maps, and Twitter.
They come pre-configured, which significantly enhances the efficiency of your scraping tasks. What I found especially handy was that these templates already know where to locate data on the page, so you don’t have to go through the pages by clicking on elements to be downloaded.
This feature helps you extract information based on its placement on different page layouts. For example, it can differentiate between Amazon’s layouts in the US and India, adjusting the scraping accordingly.
Additionally, Octoparse offers multiple export options, making it convenient to save the extracted data in Excel format or send it directly to your database using an API.
How Does Octoparse Offer Support?
Octoparse offers a straightforward user experience, but it’s reassuring to know they have a robust customer support system if you ever run into any issues during your data extraction journey. Their support options were helpful.
They provide various resources, including detailed video tutorials and an extensive FAQ section.
These materials are valuable for getting comprehensive guidance and troubleshooting assistance throughout the data extraction process. I found myself referring to their tutorials on a few occasions, and they were straightforward to follow.
If you need more direct assistance, you can contact their support team through email or Skype. They also have a ticket submission system on their website or within the client.
I’ve received responses from Octoparse’s support team within two working days, which is reasonably prompt and helpful for resolving any questions or concerns.
The combination of self-help resources and the ability to contact their support team directly provides a safety net for users, ensuring a smooth experience even if they encounter challenges.
The Important Questions: Is Web Scraping with Octoparse Safe and Legal?
This is a crucial topic. Here’s what you need to know:
Safety & Ethics: Use Octoparse responsibly. Don’t overload a website’s servers by running too many tasks at once. The scheduling features and speed limits within Octoparse help you scrape ethically without harming the target website.
Legality: Web scraping is generally legal when you are extracting publicly available data. It becomes legally grey or illegal if you scrape private data (information behind a login that you don’t have permission to access), copyrighted material for redistribution, or violate a website’s Terms of Service. Always check a site’s robots.txt file and Terms of Service before scraping.
Do You Need to Use Proxies?
On the Free Plan, your scraping tasks run from your own computer’s IP address. If you scrape a single site too aggressively, that IP can get blocked. For the free plan, using your own proxies is highly recommended for any serious task.
On the Paid Plans, Octoparse provides a pool of IP addresses and automatically rotates them for you. This built-in proxy management is one of the key benefits of upgrading, as it handles this complex technical aspect for you, making your scraping far more robust.
Octoparse Pros and Cons
Pros
- User-friendly interface with no coding required
- Powerful cloud-based data extraction
- Supports IP rotation and CAPTCHA solving
- Offers pre-built task templates for quick setup
- Flexible pricing plans for various business needs
Cons
- Learning curve for beginners
- The free plan has limited capabilities
FAQs
1. Do I need to know how to code to use Octoparse?
No, absolutely not. Octoparse is specifically designed for non-coders. It uses a visual, point-and-click interface where you teach the tool what to scrape by interacting with a website in its built-in browser. No programming knowledge is required.
2. Is it legal and safe to scrape websites with Octoparse?
Scraping publicly available data is generally considered legal. However, you must be responsible. It becomes illegal if you scrape private data or copyrighted content for redistribution. Always check a website’s Terms of Service and robots.txt file first, and use the tool ethically by not overwhelming a site’s servers.
3. What are the main limitations of the free version?
The free plan is excellent for small projects but has key limitations. Your scraping tasks run on your own computer (not in the cloud), it does not offer automatic IP rotation (increasing the risk of being blocked), and it has slower speeds with a limit on the number of tasks you can create.
4. Can Octoparse handle complex websites with logins and infinite scroll?
Yes. Octoparse is built to handle modern, dynamic websites. It can be configured to log into sites, fill out forms, select items from dropdown menus, and scrape data from pages that use “infinite scroll” to load more content.
5. Why should I upgrade to a paid plan?
You should upgrade to a paid plan for serious or large-scale scraping. The key benefits are cloud extraction (tasks run 24/7 on Octoparse’s servers), automatic IP rotation (to prevent getting blocked), scheduled scraping, and significantly faster extraction speeds.
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Conclusion: Octoparse Review
Octoparse successfully democratizes web scraping, putting powerful data extraction capabilities into the hands of non-technical users. Its visual interface is a game-changer, and its feature set is robust enough to handle the majority of scraping tasks.
✅ You should choose Octoparse if:
- You have no coding experience and need a user-friendly, visual tool.
- You want to automate repetitive data collection tasks to save time and effort.
- You need to scrape data from popular websites and can benefit from the pre-built templates.
- You value the ability to schedule tasks and run them in the cloud without tying up your own computer.
❌ You might want to look at alternatives if:
- You are a developer who prefers the infinite flexibility of writing your own custom scraping scripts (e.g., using Python libraries like Scrapy or Beautiful Soup).
- You are on an extremely tight budget and your scraping needs are too large for the free plan.
- You need to scrape websites with extremely aggressive anti-bot measures that may require highly specialized, custom-coded solutions.
For most business users, marketers, and researchers, Octoparse hits the sweet spot between power and ease of use, making it a top-tier choice in the world of web scraping tools.
