Diffbot
Web data extraction and Knowledge Graph for AI applications
AI-Powered Summary
Diffbot is a Knowledge Graph and web data extraction platform that uses AI (computer vision and NLP) to automatically read and structure data from the public web. It offers APIs for extracting articles, products, discussions, and organization data without writing custom scraping rules, plus a pre-built Knowledge Graph of hundreds of millions of entities. It serves developers, data teams, and enterprises needing structured web data for competitive intelligence, news monitoring, enrichment, and AI applications.
Key Features
What makes Diffbot stand out
Knowledge Graph Search
Search a pre-built database of 246M+ organizations, 1.6B+ articles, and millions of people.
Automatic Data Extraction
Send any webpage URL and get back structured data without writing site-specific scraping rules.
Web Crawling
Spider an entire website and extract all products, articles, or discussions into a structured database.
Natural Language Processing
Extract entities, relationships, and sentiment from raw text in 20 languages.
Data Enrichment
Enhance your existing datasets of people and organizations with fresh data from the Knowledge Graph.
News Monitoring
Build custom news feeds with entity-aware matching and real-time alerts via email or webhook.
Sentiment Analysis
Quantify sentiment at the topic level for articles, discussions, and news mentions.
Product Catalog Extraction
Extract structured product data including prices, reviews, and availability from e-commerce sites.
What's Great
- No custom rules needed per site — AI automatically identifies and extracts data fields from any page
- Pre-built Knowledge Graph with 246M+ organizations, 1.6B+ articles, ready for immediate querying
- Handles multiple data types (articles, products, discussions, events, organizations) from a single platform
- Entity-aware NLP with sentiment analysis and entity matching across 20 languages
- RESTful API-first design makes integration straightforward for developers
Things to Know
- Pricing based on activity credits can be complex to estimate for large-scale or varied use cases
- Knowledge Graph entity exports cost 25 credits each, which can add up quickly for bulk data needs
- No transparent pricing for enterprise tiers; higher-volume users must contact sales
- Limited to public web data — no support for extracting from authenticated or private pages (based on available info)
Pricing Plans
All Diffbot pricing tiers and features
Credit-based system; different products consume different amounts of credits
Free
Startup
Plus
Real Cost Breakdown
Hidden Costs
- Credit consumption varies by action type — Knowledge Graph exports cost 25 credits per entity, which can deplete credits quickly at scale
- Datacenter proxy extraction costs 2x normal extraction credits
- Enhance with refresh (re-crawl) costs 100 credits per entity vs 25 for cached data
Cost Saving Tips
- Use the free tier to experiment and test before committing to a paid plan
- Prefer Knowledge Graph cached data (25 credits) over refresh requests (100 credits) when freshness is not critical
- Use facet queries (100 credits) for summarized results when you don't need full entity records
Reasonably priced for data-intensive teams that need automated web data at scale, but the credit system requires careful planning to avoid unexpected costs on large exports.
Price Comparison
Compare Diffbot with similar tools
Diffbot ranks as the 4th most affordable option out of 5 tools, priced 71% above the category average of $175/mo.
Best For
Data teams and developers who need structured web data at scale without custom scrapers
Who Should NOT Use This
- Individuals needing to scrape a handful of pages once — Diffbot's value is in scale and automation; for a few one-off pages, a free browser extension or manual copy-paste would be simpler and cheaper.
- Teams needing data from behind logins or paywalls — Diffbot focuses on public web data extraction and may not handle authenticated or private page scraping.
- Budget-conscious startups with minimal data needs — At $299/month for the Startup tier, costs can be significant for teams that only need occasional data pulls rather than continuous feeds.
- Users looking for a point-and-click visual scraping tool — Diffbot is API-first and designed for developers; non-technical users wanting a visual interface may prefer tools like Octoparse or ParseHub.
Competitive Position
Diffbot combines AI-driven extraction (no per-site rules) with the world's largest commercially available Knowledge Graph of pre-crawled web entities, eliminating the need to build your own data infrastructure.
When to Choose Diffbot
- You need structured data from millions of web pages across diverse sites without writing per-site rules
- You want a pre-built Knowledge Graph of organizations, people, and news rather than building your own
- You need entity-aware NLP with sentiment analysis alongside web extraction
- You're building data products that require continuous, automated web data feeds
When to Look Elsewhere
- You only need to scrape a few specific sites and can write custom parsers for them
- You need a visual, no-code scraping tool for non-technical users
- You need data from authenticated/private web pages
- Your budget is under $300/month and you have limited data volume needs
Strongest alternative: Apify
Learning Curve
Prerequisites
Common Challenges
- Understanding the credit system and how different operations consume varying amounts of credits
- Learning the Knowledge Graph query language (DQL) for complex searches
- Designing efficient crawl configurations to avoid wasting credits on irrelevant pages
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Diffbot
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