For people who need the data, not a codebase. Three tools still matter in 2026, and they could hardly be more different: a marketplace of ready-made scrapers, a point-and-click desktop app, and a veteran that has gone quiet.
Updated October 2026
Prices verified 17 Oct 2026
04 / NO-CODE
Best picks by use case
Analysts, marketers and founders who need data from websites without writing or maintaining code. Picks rest on vendor pages and cited third-party evidence. How we chose them.
$1.00/GB flat, prepaid from $50, balance never expires; Apify’s own residential proxy lists at $8/GB (as of October 2026)
$1.00/GB flat against $8/GB ($7 on higher plans) for Apify’s own residential proxy, with no subscription and a balance that never expires.
Apify accepts your own proxies: in an Actor’s Input tab, open “Proxy and browser configuration” and enter your proxy URLs. It works in Actors whose input offers proxy configuration.
PacketStream’s HTTP endpoint takes the username and auth key in the proxy URL (http://USER:AUTH_KEY@proxy.packetstream.io:31112); add _country-XX to the key to choose a country.
Free $5/mo of usage; Starter $19/mo; compute $0.20 per compute unit (as of October 2026)
19,000+ ready-made scrapers ("Actors") you configure with a form, plus schedules, webhooks and an API.
Residential and Google SERP proxies available on the same account; built on the open-source Crawlee library.
Caveats: Usage-based bills are hard to predict: Proxyway saw one run cost more than $60 for a tenth of the results. In Proxyway’s 2025 tests, dedicated Actors failed on around half of the protected targets.
Free (10 tasks, local runs); Standard from $69/mo (check the billing period); Professional $249/mo (as of October 2026)
A no-code desktop app with a visual builder; tasks run locally or in Octoparse’s cloud.
Residential proxies ($3/GB) and CAPTCHA solving ($1–1.50 per 1,000) available as add-ons; 5-day money-back.
Caveats: Monthly, quarterly and annual billing are offered (annual saves 16%), and the page doesn’t make clear which period the $69 assumes. Trustpilot 4.2 from 97 reviews, but 31% are 1-star (surprise charges, cancellation).
Runner-up:ParseHub. A long-running visual builder with a free plan of 200 pages per run; paid plans start at $189/mo and development has been quiet since 2023.
As of October 2026, from each vendor's pricing page.
No-code scraper pricing (October 2026)
Tool
Free tier
Paid plans
Billing model
Add-ons
Refund
Apify
$5 of usage a month
Starter $19/mo; Scale $199; Business $999
Usage: compute $0.20 per compute unit (1 GB RAM-hour), down to $0.13; Actors priced per event or per usage
Residential proxy $8/GB → $7; Google SERP proxy $2.50 → $1.70 per 1,000
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Octoparse
10 tasks, local runs only, 50K rows/month
Standard from $69/mo (check the billing period); Professional $249/mo
Plan-based
Residential proxies $3/GB; CAPTCHA solving $1–1.50 per 1,000
5-day money-back
ParseHub
200 pages per run, 5 public projects
Standard $189/mo ($155 quarterly); Professional $599/mo
Plan-based
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Two kinds of no-code
Visual builders (Octoparse, ParseHub) let you open a page in their desktop app, click the elements
you want, and turn that into a repeatable task that runs on your machine or in the vendor's cloud. You own the
scraper's logic; when the site changes its layout, you fix the task yourself.
Marketplaces of ready-made scrapers (Apify's 19,000+ "Actors") flip that around: someone else
builds and maintains a scraper for a popular site, and you fill in a form with search terms or URLs. It is the
fastest path when an Actor exists for your target, and you can schedule runs, call them by API and get webhooks when
they finish. When no Actor fits, building your own means writing code, typically with Apify's open-source
Crawlee library, which is why Proxyway flags a learning curve.
Quality varies in both models. Proxyway's 2025 tests found Apify's dedicated Actors failed on around half of the
protected targets; one Walmart run took 14 hours, and a Leboncoin run cost more than $60 for a tenth of the expected
results, while the G2 Actor did excellently. Treat any marketplace scraper as something to test on a small run first.
Billing gotchas
Octoparse advertises Standard "from $69/mo" and offers monthly, quarterly and annual billing, with
annual billing 16% cheaper than monthly. The page doesn't make clear which period the $69 assumes, so check the
price for your billing period at checkout. Its Trustpilot rating is 4.2 from 97 reviews, yet 31% are 1-star, mostly about surprise charges and cancellation. The 5-day money-back window is short:
decide quickly. Octoparse pricing.
Apify bills usage: compute units, proxy traffic and per-event Actor pricing all add up, and a badly
behaved Actor can burn credits. Start with small runs and watch usage closely. Its residential proxy lists at
$8/GB; in Actors whose input offers proxy configuration you can enter your own proxy URLs instead
(Apify docs), such as PacketStream's at $1/GB flat. Its Trustpilot rating
is 4.8 from 802 reviews. Apify pricing.
ParseHub jumps from a free tier straight to $189 a month. Its blog has been quiet since June 2023,
though its installer was updated in April 2025, so it is low-activity rather than abandoned; Proxyway still listed it
second among no-code tools in March 2026. ParseHub pricing.
When to switch to code or an API
No-code tools are great for a few thousand rows from a handful of sites. Three signs you have outgrown them: you are
paying $69–$249 a month for jobs a $19 scraping API plan could run; protected sites keep failing; or you spend more
time fixing tasks than using the data. At that point, compare a scraping API (pay
per successful page), an AI-agent search and fetch API (if the data
feeds an LLM), or a small open-source scraper on cheap
residential bandwidth. The build vs
buy guide and the cost calculator help with the numbers.
It depends on how you want to work. If a ready-made scraper exists for your target, Apify: 19,000+ Actors with scheduling and an API, and $5 of free usage a month. If you want to build your own scraper by clicking through a page, Octoparse, a point-and-click desktop app with cloud runs. ParseHub still works, but development has been quiet since 2023.
Can I use cheaper proxies with Apify?
Yes, in Actors whose input offers proxy configuration: open the Actor’s Input tab, then the Proxy and browser configuration section, and enter your proxy URLs. PacketStream’s residential proxies cost $1/GB flat with no subscription and a balance that never expires, against the $8/GB list price of Apify’s own residential proxy ($7 on higher plans).
Is there a free no-code web scraper?
All three have free tiers: Apify gives $5 of usage a month, Octoparse allows 10 tasks run locally with up to 50,000 rows a month, and ParseHub allows 200 pages per run across five public projects.
Can no-code scrapers get past anti-bot protection?
Sometimes. Octoparse sells residential proxies and CAPTCHA solving as add-ons, and Apify Actors can use its proxies. But independent results are mixed: in Proxyway’s 2025 tests, Apify’s dedicated Actors failed on around half of the protected targets. For heavily protected sites, a scraping API is usually more reliable.