Using ScrapingAnt for Anti-Detection

ScrapingAnt is a web scraping API that runs a real headless browser for every request. This means JavaScript rendering, proxy rotation, and anti-detection are all handled automatically.

Getting Started

Sign up at scrapingant.com to get your API key. The free plan includes 10,000 API credits per month.

pip install scrapingant-client

Using the Python Client

ScrapingAnt provides an official Python SDK:

from scrapingant_client import ScrapingAntClient

client = ScrapingAntClient(token="YOUR_SCRAPINGANT_TOKEN")

result = client.general_request("https://example.com")
print(f"Status: {result.status_code}")
print(f"Content: {result.content[:500]}")

Using the REST API Directly

You can also use ScrapingAnt with plain requests:

import requests

API_TOKEN = "YOUR_SCRAPINGANT_TOKEN"

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general",
    params={
        "url": "https://example.com",
        "x-api-key": API_TOKEN,
    },
    headers={"x-api-key": API_TOKEN},
    timeout=60,
)

print(response.status_code)
print(response.text[:500])

Key Features

JavaScript Rendering

Every ScrapingAnt request runs in a real Chromium browser, so SPAs and dynamic content work out of the box:

from scrapingant_client import ScrapingAntClient

client = ScrapingAntClient(token="YOUR_SCRAPINGANT_TOKEN")

# Wait for specific element to load
result = client.general_request(
    "https://spa-website.com",
    wait_for_selector=".product-list",
)
print(result.content[:500])

Custom Cookies and Headers

from scrapingant_client import ScrapingAntClient

client = ScrapingAntClient(token="YOUR_SCRAPINGANT_TOKEN")

result = client.general_request(
    "https://example.com",
    cookies="session_id=abc123; lang=en",
    headers={"Accept-Language": "en-US,en;q=0.9"},
)

Proxy Country Selection

from scrapingant_client import ScrapingAntClient

client = ScrapingAntClient(token="YOUR_SCRAPINGANT_TOKEN")

# Route through a US proxy
result = client.general_request(
    "https://example.com",
    proxy_country="US",
)

Browser Actions

ScrapingAnt can interact with pages before returning the HTML:

from scrapingant_client import ScrapingAntClient

client = ScrapingAntClient(token="YOUR_SCRAPINGANT_TOKEN")

# Click a "Load More" button and wait
result = client.general_request(
    "https://example.com/products",
    browser_actions=[
        {"action": "click", "selector": "#load-more"},
        {"action": "wait", "timeout": 2000},
    ],
)

ScrapingAnt vs ScraperAPI

Feature	ScrapingAnt	ScraperAPI
JS rendering	Always on	Optional (render=true)
Free credits	10,000/month	5,000/month
Browser actions	Yes	No
Proxy types	Residential	Datacenter + Residential
SDKs	Python, JS	REST-based

Both are solid choices. ScrapingAnt is great when you always need JavaScript rendering. ScraperAPI is more flexible when you often scrape simple pages that do not need a browser.