Diffbot is an automatic-extraction and Knowledge Graph platform starting at $299/mo. WebScraping.AI is a general scraping API from $29 — with residential and stealth proxies, JS rendering, and AI Q&A and field extraction on any page.
2,000 free API credits · No credit card required
An honest, side-by-side comparison. Verify the numbers — this is a market where you should.
| WebScraping.AI | Diffbot | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $29/mo (250k credits) | $299/mo (Startup, 250k credits) |
| Free tier | 2,000 credits | 10,000 credits/mo |
| Proxy control | Datacenter, residential, stealth | Datacenter / dynamic (no residential/stealth tier documented) |
| JS (Chromium) rendering | Yes | Yes |
| AI extraction | AI fields + Q&A on any page | Automatic ML extraction (no selectors) |
| Knowledge Graph | — | Yes (unique) |
| MCP server for AI agents | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Fixed credits per request | Credits (KG queries cost 25–100) |
Pricing and credit costs last checked July 2026. Sources: Diffbot pricing · WebScraping.AI pricing.
No tool is right for everyone. Diffbot is a capable product, and these are the areas where it genuinely shines — worth weighing before you switch.
The most common reasons teams evaluate a switch.
Diffbot's entry plan is $299/mo. WebScraping.AI starts at $29/mo, so small and mid-size projects aren't priced out.
You pay for a Knowledge Graph platform even when you just want page data. WebScraping.AI is a general scraping API with AI extraction available when you need it.
Knowledge Graph queries cost 25–100 credits versus 1 for a page extraction, which trips up new users. WebScraping.AI's per-request costs are one published table.
Diffbot documents datacenter and dynamic proxies, but no residential or stealth tier. WebScraping.AI gives explicit residential (10–25) and stealth (50) proxies per request for protected sites.
Every request type has a fixed, published credit cost — no surprises, and you only pay for successful requests.
Plans from $29/mo (250k credits) · $99/mo (1M) · $249/mo (3M). Failed requests are always free. See full pricing.
Diffbot's selector-free ML extraction and its Knowledge Graph are real, hard-to-match strengths: point it at a page and it classifies the content and returns typed data, or query its pre-built graph of the web without scraping at all.
WebScraping.AI takes the opposite approach: you control the fetch — datacenter, residential, or stealth proxies, with or without JS — then use /ai/fields and /ai/question to extract structured data or ask anything about the page. For general-purpose scraping it's far cheaper and more flexible.
On sites that actively block bots, proxy quality decides success. WebScraping.AI lets you choose residential (10–25 credits) or stealth (50 credits) proxies per request, with geotargeting.
Diffbot's documented proxies are datacenter and dynamic only, without a residential or stealth tier — so for the hardest, most-defended targets, explicit proxy control is a meaningful difference.
Point your requests at WebScraping.AI — here's the equivalent call in your language.
curl -G "https://api.webscraping.ai/ai/fields" \
--data-urlencode "api_key=YOUR_API_KEY" \
--data-urlencode "url=https://example.com/news/article" \
--data-urlencode "fields[title]=The article headline" \
--data-urlencode "fields[author]=The author's name" \
--data-urlencode "fields[date]=The publication date"
# Response:
# { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." }
# pip install webscraping_ai
# https://pypi.org/project/webscraping-ai/
from webscraping_ai import Client
client = Client(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")
result = client.fields(
"https://example.com/news/article",
fields={
"title": "The article headline",
"author": "The author's name",
"date": "The publication date",
},
)
print(result)
# Response:
# { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." }
// npm install webscraping-ai
// https://www.npmjs.com/package/webscraping-ai
import { WebScrapingAI } from 'webscraping-ai';
const client = new WebScrapingAI({ apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY' });
const result = await client.fields({
url: 'https://example.com/news/article',
fields: {
title: 'The article headline',
author: 'The author\'s name',
date: 'The publication date',
},
});
console.log(result);
// Response:
// { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." }
<?php
// composer require webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-php
// https://packagist.org/packages/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use WebScrapingAI\Client;
$client = new Client('YOUR_API_KEY');
$result = $client->fields('https://example.com/news/article', [
'title' => 'The article headline',
'author' => 'The author\'s name',
'date' => 'The publication date',
]);
print_r($result);
// Response:
// { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." }
# gem install webscraping_ai
# https://rubygems.org/gems/webscraping_ai
require 'webscraping_ai'
client = WebScrapingAI::Client.new(api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY')
result = client.fields(
'https://example.com/news/article',
fields: {
title: 'The article headline',
author: 'The author\'s name',
date: 'The publication date',
}
)
puts result.inspect
# Response:
# { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." }
// go get github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4
// https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4
package main
import (
"context"
"fmt"
webscrapingai "github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4"
)
func main() {
client, _ := webscrapingai.NewClient(&webscrapingai.Config{APIKey: "YOUR_API_KEY"})
result, _ := client.Fields(context.Background(), &webscrapingai.FieldsOptions{
URL: "https://example.com/news/article",
Fields: map[string]string{
"title": "The article headline",
"author": "The author's name",
"date": "The publication date",
},
})
fmt.Println(result.Result)
}
// Response:
// { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." }
// Maven: ai.webscraping:webscraping-ai:4.0.0
// https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/ai.webscraping/webscraping-ai
import ai.webscraping.Client;
import ai.webscraping.Config;
import ai.webscraping.option.FieldsOptions;
import ai.webscraping.result.FieldsResult;
Client client = new Client(Config.builder().apiKey("YOUR_API_KEY").build());
FieldsResult result = client.fields(FieldsOptions.builder()
.url("https://example.com/news/article")
.addField("title", "The article headline")
.addField("author", "The author's name")
.addField("date", "The publication date")
.build());
System.out.println(result.getResult());
// Response:
// { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." }
// dotnet add package WebScrapingAI
// https://www.nuget.org/packages/WebScrapingAI
using WebScrapingAI;
var client = new WebScrapingAIClient(new WebScrapingAIClientOptions { ApiKey = "YOUR_API_KEY" });
var result = await client.FieldsAsync(new FieldsRequest {
Url = "https://example.com/news/article",
Fields = new Dictionary<string, string> {
["title"] = "The article headline",
["author"] = "The author's name",
["date"] = "The publication date",
},
});
Console.WriteLine(result.Result);
// Response:
// { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." }
Is WebScraping.AI a good Diffbot alternative?
Yes, if you want affordable general-purpose scraping with AI extraction and explicit proxy control, without Diffbot's $299/mo floor. Diffbot is the better fit if you need selector-free automatic extraction across many page types or its Knowledge Graph.
How is WebScraping.AI cheaper than Diffbot?
WebScraping.AI starts at $29/mo for 250k credits versus Diffbot's $299/mo entry plan for the same credit count. Pricing is one fixed cost per request type, whereas Diffbot's Knowledge Graph queries consume 25–100 credits each.
Does WebScraping.AI extract structured data like Diffbot?
Yes — /ai/fields returns structured JSON from any page using a natural-language field description, and /ai/question answers questions about a page. Diffbot's automatic extraction returns typed schemas without a description, which is a strong fit when pages match its supported types.
Does WebScraping.AI have a Knowledge Graph?
No. Diffbot's Knowledge Graph is a unique, pre-built graph of the public web. WebScraping.AI scrapes URLs you supply in real time; if you need a queryable entity graph, Diffbot is purpose-built for that.
Does WebScraping.AI give more proxy control than Diffbot?
Yes — you can select datacenter, residential, or stealth proxies per request, with geotargeting. Diffbot documents datacenter and dynamic proxies but no residential or stealth tier, which matters most on heavily protected sites.
Get started with 2,000 free API credits. No credit card required.