Best Video Scrapers for High-Scale Video Data Extraction
Major video-sharing networks are highly dynamic environments that present significant challenges for automated data extraction. Technical hurdles, such as infinite-scrolling layouts prevalent in short-form video feeds, often cause standard scrapers to fail to consistently retrieve data.
We conducted a benchmark analysis evaluating providers across 100 keywords and 1,000 unique video assets to identify the most efficient solutions for high-volume data collection.
Cost comparison of the top video scraping solutions
*: Fixed subscription price you pay every month
Video scraping benchmark results
Quick analysis: Based on our benchmark, Apify provides more data points (31 fields), while Oxylabs offers faster individual video retrieval (approx. 5 seconds).
Fields retrieved vs. average time
Compare the volume of metadata fields collected by each provider against the average time required to process each video:
Response time comparison
The following graph shows the relationship between the initial request latency and the total execution time for the extraction workflow.
To see how we calculated these metrics, read our methodology section.
Detailed reviews & pros/cons of the tools
Bright Data offers ready-made scraping templates with keyword-based search and URL-driven scraping. You can run these templates either through their UI or entirely via API calls.
Features:
- Short-form video support: Specialized collectors engineered to navigate the “infinite scroll” architecture of vertical video feeds without session interruptions or crashes.
- Historical datasets: For use cases where real-time extraction isn’t required, Bright Data offers access to massive, daily-updated datasets containing video metadata (channel details, engagement metrics, and trends).
- No-code templates: A drag-and-drop builder designed for non-technical users to extract key data points like video titles, engagement counts, and descriptions effortlessly.
Oxylabs provides a specialized scraper API designed for high-fidelity data extraction from the world’s leading video networks. The solution allows users to target specific endpoints, such as Search, Transcript, or Metadata, to retrieve real-time results through a structured request flow.
Their web unblocker incorporates coordinate-level geo-targeting, enabling precise regional data collection. The API facilitates complex request types and natively supports JavaScript rendering and parsing.
Features:
- Global geo-targeting: Enables the tracking of localized video trends across 195 countries.
- Multi-endpoint flexibility: Supports a modular approach where users can first retrieve video IDs via search and then execute targeted metadata requests.
Decodo offers two general-purpose scraping API environments: the Core API and the Advanced Scraper, the latter of which includes dedicated endpoints for major video-sharing networks.
A standout feature is its Transcript Origin setting, which allows users to choose between platform-generated captions (machine-created ASR subtitles) and uploader-provided captions (human-curated SRT/VTT files).
By toggling the transcript_origin parameter in the API call, users can prioritize either the raw, automatically generated text or the high-accuracy, creator-supplied transcripts.
Features:
- Cost-effective: Their “Lite” scraper tier is significantly cheaper than Bright Data for simple metadata tasks.
- Subtitle/transcript parsing: Dedicated parameters to extract transcripts in SRT/JSON format instantly.
Apify’s video scraper enables users to extract and download data, including channel names, likes, view counts, and subscriber numbers. The API operates as a template with a user-friendly, point-and-click interface.
It can scrape up to 20,000 video data points per URL, though the maximum results may vary based on the complexity of the input.
Features:
- Video shorts actor: Specifically designed to scroll through shorts feeds and extract music usage and hashtags.
- Comment scraper: Extracts nested replies, user details, and timestamps.
ScraperAPI offers a general-purpose web scraping API with country-level targeting. By default, the service provides geo-targeting for the US and EU, with the option to target 12 additional countries for an extra fee.
JavaScript rendering is also available at an additional cost. Compared with platforms such as Decodo and Oxylabs, ScraperAPI is purpose-built for developers.
Features:
- Render JS: Built-in capability to render JavaScript for dynamic pages (costs extra credits).
- Geotargeting: Target 50 countries to see how search results vary by region.
PhantomBuster is an automation-first platform tailored for market and growth teams, with over 100 ready-made “Phantoms”. There is no ready-made templates Phantom in the catalog to scrape search results or extract username links from comments and comments by commentators.
The three dedicated Phantoms are Video Scraper, Channel Scraper, and Channel Video Extractor.
The provider offers a 14-day free trial with 5 Phantom slots and 1,000 AI credits. You can scrape videos, including public data points such as the video title, channel name, subscriber count, video views, and video description.
- Channel scraper: Extracts subscriber counts, social media links (Instagram/Twitter), and about page details.
- Cross-platform: Can link channels to their Instagram or LinkedIn profiles.
Video scraper methodology
We evaluated two leading video scraping providers (Apify and Oxylabs) by targeting the world’s largest video-sharing network. The evaluation used 100 keywords across domains like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and software development. Each keyword was configured to return 10 results, totaling 1,000 video data points per provider.
API architecture:
The evaluation analyzed two distinct architectural approaches:
- Apify employed a single-call execution model, in which a single request returned complete video metadata directly from the platform’s search index.
- Oxylabs utilized a two-phase methodology: an initial search request to retrieve unique video identifiers, followed by secondary metadata requests to fetch detailed information for each asset.
Execution:
To ensure a controlled environment, requests were submitted sequentially with a 1-second delay between keywords. A 10-minute timeout window was applied to each keyword submission. Both providers were configured to target a consistent volume of 10 video URLs per keyword.
Data validation:
A submission was considered successful if it returned an HTTP 200 status and provided valid identifiers or structured data. We enforced strict validation to ensure enterprise-grade data quality:
- URL Validation: Video links were verified against standard video hosting URL patterns.
- Quantitative Fields: Numeric data (view count, like count, comment count) were required to be integers ≥ 0.
- Qualitative Fields: Text fields (title, description) had to be non-empty strings.
A video was officially classified as “successfully scraped” only if it yielded a valid, reachable URL.
Be the first to comment
Your email address will not be published. All fields are required.