Social media scraping tools, compared
We build InsightSocial, so we are not neutral. What we can do is be accurate: verified pricing, and an honest section on every page explaining where the other tool is the better buy.
At a glance
List prices checked 25 July 2026. Follow each comparison for the full breakdown.
| Tool | How it runs | Entry price | What you are billed for | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| InsightSocial | Chrome extension, your own session | Free (500 export credits/mo), $9.99/mo Pro | Per exported row | Marketers and researchers who need social exports in a spreadsheet |
| Apify | Cloud platform, 5,000+ actors | Free ($5 credits), then $29/mo | Compute units + proxies + actor fees | Developers building scheduled data pipelines |
| Thunderbit | Chrome extension, AI field detection | Free tier, then paid credit plans | Credits consumed per row | Scraping many different ordinary websites |
| Bright Data | Enterprise proxy + data network | Free 5K records, then $1.50/1K or $499/mo | Per GB and per 1,000 records | Enterprise-scale collection with compliance review |
Thunderbit publishes prices through a live widget and third-party sources disagree on the current tiers, so we quote its billing model rather than a figure we cannot verify. Check their pricing
Full comparisons
Developer scraping platform
InsightSocial vs Apify
Social media exports priced by the row you keep — no compute units, no actor rental, no API key.
Read comparisonAI web scraper extension
InsightSocial vs Thunderbit
Same browser-extension convenience, but built for infinite social feeds instead of ordinary web pages.
Read comparisonEnterprise proxy + data network
InsightSocial vs Bright Data
Social media exports without a $499 minimum, a per-GB meter, or a procurement cycle.
Read comparisonLooking for a specific platform?
InsightSocial ships a purpose-built extractor for each platform rather than a generic page reader.
Browse all scrapersFrequently Asked Questions
It depends on scale. For millions of records with unattended cloud scheduling, Bright Data or Apify are the right infrastructure. For scraping a wide variety of ordinary websites, Thunderbit’s AI field detection is hard to beat. For exporting Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn or Facebook data into a spreadsheet at human scale, a purpose-built browser extension like InsightSocial is faster to start, cheaper to run and can reach login-gated content that cloud scrapers cannot.
Most of a cloud scraper’s cost is unblocking: residential proxies, CAPTCHA solving, and retries when a datacenter IP gets challenged. An extension does not need any of that, because the requests come from your own IP with your own cookies at normal browsing speed. Removing the proxy bill removes the largest variable line item.
InsightSocial and Thunderbit require none at all. Apify can be used without code by running Store actors from its dashboard, but you will need engineering to use its API, webhooks or custom actors. Bright Data offers no-code interfaces but is designed around API integration.
Only tools that run on your own logged-in browser session, which means InsightSocial and Thunderbit. Cloud platforms would need your credentials or exported cookies handed to a remote worker, and enterprise vendors generally restrict collection to publicly accessible data.
All four have free tiers, but they differ in shape. InsightSocial lets you scrape and browse without limit, and meters only exports — 500 rows a month. Bright Data gives 5,000 Web Scraper API records a month. Apify gives $5 in platform credits, consumed by compute units and proxy traffic. Thunderbit offers a limited one-time credit allowance.
Try InsightSocial free
Unlimited scraping, plus 500 rows exported a month. No credit card, no API key.
No credit card required · Works on Chrome, Edge, Brave