When you want to collect data from a website programmatically, there are two main options: using the site's API (if available) or web scraping. But what exactly is the difference?
What is a Web API?
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of protocols and tools for building software applications. A web API allows other programs to access and interact with the data and functionality on a website via a standardized interface.
For example, Twitter offers a web API that enables developers to build applications that can post tweets, follow users, and more without needing direct access to Twitter's internal systems. Using Twitter's API requires registering for a developer account and adhering to certain usage terms and limits.
Benefits of using web APIs:
What is Web Scraping?
Web scraping refers to programmatically extracting data from websites by fetching pages and parsing the HTML content. For sites without an API, web scraping may be the only option available to get data in bulk.
Popular libraries like BeautifulSoup in Python or scrape.js in Node.js make it relatively simple to parse HTML and extract the parts you want - such as product listings from an e-commerce site. The challenge is that websites often don't want to be scraped and may try to detect and block scrapers.
Downsides of web scraping:
Key Difference
The key difference is that APIs provide official, supported access points to data, while web scraping "scrapes" data from sites in an unofficial manner. If a site offers an API, using that is best. Otherwise, web scraping may be your only option to programmatically get large amounts of data.
Using either method irresponsibly to overload a site with requests can get you blocked. Check a website's terms of service before accessing their data via an API or web scraper.