--- title: "Diffbot Alternative — Affordable Scraping API with AI Extraction" description: "A Diffbot alternative from $29/mo (no $299 floor): general scraping with residential and stealth proxies, JS rendering, and AI Q&A and field extraction." url: https://webscraping.ai/diffbot-alternative markdown_index: https://webscraping.ai/llms.txt --- DIFFBOT ALTERNATIVE # An affordable Diffbot alternative 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. [Start Free Trial](https://webscraping.ai/auth/sign_up)[View Documentation](https://webscraping.ai/docs) 2,000 free API credits · No credit card required ## WebScraping.AI vs Diffbot at a glance 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) | | Pay-as-you-go | **Yes — prepaid credits from $20, no subscription** | No published pay-as-you-go option | | 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](https://www.diffbot.com/pricing/) · [WebScraping.AI pricing](https://webscraping.ai/#pricing). ## What Diffbot does well 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. **Selector-free automatic extraction** — machine-vision and ML return structured JSON from a page with zero configuration. **The Knowledge Graph** — a genuinely unique, queryable graph of the public web (people, companies, articles) that no competitor matches. **Entity resolution and enrichment** — dedupe and link entities, or enrich a person or organization by name or URL. **A long-standing reputation** for clean article and product extraction, plus a Natural Language API. ## Why developers look for a Diffbot alternative The most common reasons teams evaluate a switch. #### A $299/mo floor Diffbot's entry plan is **$299/mo**. WebScraping.AI starts at **$29/mo** , or you can skip subscriptions entirely and start with **$20 of prepaid pay-as-you-go credits** — so small and mid-size projects aren't priced out. #### Overkill for general scraping 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. #### A confusing credit model 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. #### Less proxy control 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. ## Transparent, published pricing Every request type has a fixed, published credit cost — no surprises, and you only pay for successful requests. Request type No JS + JS render Datacenter proxies 1 credit 5 credits Residential proxies 10 credits 25 credits Stealth proxies 50 credits 50 credits AI extraction add-on +5 credits Google SERP ([`/serp`](https://webscraping.ai/google-serp-api), parsed JSON) 15 credits per search Structured site data ([`/data`](https://webscraping.ai/docs#data), e.g. YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit) 15 credits per page (50 for Reddit), incl. empty parses Plans from **$29/mo** (250k credits) · **$99/mo** (1M) · **$249/mo** (3M) · or **pay-as-you-go** from $20 (100k credits, no subscription, valid 12 months). Failed requests are always free. [See full pricing](https://webscraping.ai/#pricing). ### General scraping vs automatic extraction 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. ### Explicit proxy control for protected sites 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. ## Switching is one API call Point your requests at WebScraping.AI — here's the equivalent call in your language. **cURL** ```bash 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": "..." } ``` **Python** ```python # 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": "..." } ``` **JavaScript** ```javascript // 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** ```php 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": "..." } ``` **Ruby** ```ruby # 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** ```go // 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": "..." } ``` **Java** ```java // Maven: ai.webscraping:webscraping-ai:4.2.0 // 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": "..." } ``` **C#** ```csharp // 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 { ["title"] = "The article headline", ["author"] = "The author's name", ["date"] = "The publication date", }, }); Console.WriteLine(result.Result); // Response: // { "title": "...", "author": "...", "date": "..." } ``` ### Switch to WebScraping.AI if… You want **general scraping at a low price** , without a $299/mo floor. You want **explicit residential and stealth proxy control** for protected sites. You want **AI Q&A and field extraction on any page** , not only pre-defined page types. You want **simple published pricing** with one cost per request type. ### Stick with Diffbot if… You need **automatic, selector-free extraction** across many page types with zero config. You need the **Knowledge Graph** or entity enrichment — a unique Diffbot asset. **Extraction accuracy** on standard article and product pages is your top priority. You're building a **knowledge base or entity dataset** , not just fetching pages. ## Frequently asked questions 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 — or you can skip subscriptions entirely with prepaid pay-as-you-go credits from a $20 top-up, valid for 12 months. 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. ## Compare other alternatives [Browse AI Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/browse-ai-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to Browse AI. [ScrapFly Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/scrapfly-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to ScrapFly. [Browserless Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/browserless-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to Browserless. [Jina AI Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/jina-ai-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to Jina AI. [ScrapingBee Alternative](https://webscraping.ai/scrapingbee-alternative): See how WebScraping.AI compares to ScrapingBee. [All comparisons](https://webscraping.ai/alternatives): Browse every WebScraping.AI alternative comparison. ## Try WebScraping.AI as your Diffbot alternative Get started with 2,000 free API credits. No credit card required. [Start Free Trial](https://webscraping.ai/auth/sign_up)[View API Documentation](https://webscraping.ai/docs)