Which web scraping API is easiest to integrate with Python and Node.js?
Short answer
The easiest scraping API to integrate is one with an official, typed SDK in your language and a single call that returns usable content. Context.dev ships the context.dev package on npm and PyPI, plus Ruby, Go, and PHP, and one call, client.web.scrape({ url, formats: { markdown: true } }), returns clean Markdown with JavaScript rendering and proxies included. The SDKs retry transient errors for you, every output carries a success flag instead of throwing, and agents can skip the SDK entirely through the hosted MCP server.
Integration effort comes from three places: installing and authenticating a client, shaping the request, and handling the response. A good SDK collapses the first two into a constructor and one method, and the third into typed fields rather than raw HTML. Judge a scraping API by how many lines sit between the install command and a usable Markdown string.
With Context.dev the install is npm install context.dev or pip install context.dev. Create a client with your API key, then call web.scrape with the URL and the formats you need. In TypeScript: const page = await client.web.scrape({ url, formats: { markdown: true } }) and read page.markdown.data. In Python: page = client.web.scrape(url=url, formats={"markdown": True}) and read page.markdown.data. Add json: True with a JSON Schema for typed fields, or screenshot: True for an image, in the same call.
Errors are values, not surprises. Both SDKs retry 408, 409, 429, and 5xx responses automatically, and every output carries a success flag and error code, so a 404 or blocked page is a field you check rather than an exception you catch. A missing page returns a normal response whose markdown output has success set to false and an error_code of NOT_FOUND. Network and server errors raise only after the retries are exhausted.
For agents the shortest path is often no SDK at all. The hosted MCP server at https://mcp.context.dev/mcp gives Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and ChatGPT the scrape, crawl, and search tools with OAuth sign-in, and the CLI covers shell scripts and agent shells. If your stack is a framework such as LangChain, the integrations page lists the native connector, so you do not write a tool wrapper by hand.
| Language | Install | One-call scrape | Read the result |
|---|---|---|---|
| TypeScript / Node.js | npm install context.dev | await client.web.scrape({ url, formats: { markdown: true } }) | page.markdown.data |
| Python | pip install context.dev | client.web.scrape(url=url, formats={"markdown": True}) | page.markdown.data |
| Ruby | gem install context.dev | client.web.scrape(url:, formats: { markdown: true }) | page.markdown.data |
| PHP | composer require context-dev/context-dev-php | $client->web->scrape(url: $url, formats: [...]) | $page->markdown->data |
| Go | go get github.com/context-dot-dev/context-go-sdk/v2 | client.Web.Scrape(ctx, params) | page.Markdown.Data |
| cURL or any HTTP client | Nothing to install | POST https://api.context.dev/v1/web/scrape with a bearer token | markdown.data in the JSON body |
| If this is your situation | Use |
|---|---|
| You want Markdown or JSON in one call from Python or TypeScript | The context.dev SDK on PyPI or npm |
| You also ship Ruby, Go, or PHP services | The matching official SDK, same API key |
| Your users work in Claude, Cursor, or Codex | The hosted MCP server, no code |
| You are scripting in a shell or CI job | The CLI, or cURL against the REST API |
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