For a clean HTML table into Sheets or the clipboard, Table Capture. For a free list scrape that follows next-page buttons, Instant Data Scraper. For a reusable multi-page scraper, Web Scraper. For sites with a ready-made recipe, Data Miner. For card layouts, tables inside images, or a workbook plus Word and PowerPoint from one click, Pulse Extractor.
At a glance
| Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
| Table Capture | Clean HTML tables to the clipboard or Google Sheets |
| Instant Data Scraper | Free list scraping through pagination and infinite scroll |
| Web Scraper | A reusable scraper across many pages of one site |
| Data Miner | Sites that already have a community recipe |
| Pulse Extractor | Card layouts and listings, tables inside images, and one result as Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF |
The tools
Table Capture (George Mike)
Best for: Clean HTML tables to the clipboard or Google Sheets. People who regularly copy HTML tables from websites into Excel, Google Sheets or Office 365.
- Copies HTML tables to the clipboard or exports them to Excel, CSV, Google Sheets or Office 365.[1]
- Its free version exports up to 250 rows and can capture div-based tables and repeating items.[2]
- Its Pro version (annual subscription) adds direct Excel and CSV download, multi-page tables, tables that load as you scroll, PNG screenshots of tables and PDF table export.[3]
Choose it when: your data is already an HTML table and you want it on the clipboard or in Google Sheets in one step. Table Capture vs Pulse Extractor, in detail.
Instant Data Scraper
Best for: Free list scraping through pagination and infinite scroll. People who want a free, one-click way to pull list-like data from a page, including through pagination and infinite scroll.
- Uses AI-based analysis of the page structure to guess which data to extract, and lets you adjust the selection.[4]
- Supports pagination, automatic navigation to the next page and infinite scrolling, with delay and wait settings.[5]
- Says it is completely free and that scraped data does not leave your browser.[6]
Choose it when: you want a completely free tool for list and table data. Instant Data Scraper vs Pulse Extractor, in detail.
Web Scraper (webscraper.io)
Best for: A reusable scraper across many pages of one site. People who will set up a reusable scraper once and run it across many pages of a site, locally or in the cloud.
- You build a "sitemap" of selectors in a panel inside Chrome developer tools that tells it how to move through a site and what to extract.[7]
- Scrapes multiple pages and dynamic pages, including JavaScript, AJAX and infinite scroll.[8]
- The extension is free; Web Scraper Cloud is a paid, managed service for running scrapers at scale, with a 7-day free trial.[9]
Choose it when: you need many pages of a site collected by a reusable configuration. Web Scraper vs Pulse Extractor, in detail.
Data Miner (dataminer.io)
Best for: Sites that already have a community recipe. People who extract tables and lists from popular websites using ready-made, community-shared recipes.
- Extracts tables and lists from HTML pages and exports XLS, CSV, XLSX or TSV, or uploads to Google Sheets.[10]
- Offers one-click extraction with user-generated recipes for popular websites.[11]
- Has a free plan with 500 page credits a month; paid plans add more.[12]
Choose it when: a ready-made recipe already exists for the site you work on. Data Miner vs Pulse Extractor, in detail.
Pulse Extractor
Best for: Card layouts and listings, tables inside images, and one result as Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF. Described here as of Pulse Extractor 0.5.8, the current Chrome Web Store release.
- Open the page and click Extract Page. No selectors, recipes or robots to build; repeated items are detected whether or not they are a table.
- A genuine .xlsx workbook with typed cells (several worksheets where the page has several tables), plus CSV and JSON from the same result.
- Smart Snip reads text and tables inside images, on your own computer, in English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian, with Arabic and Traditional Chinese in Beta; it also opens PNG, JPEG, WebP and PDF files from your computer.
- One page at a time, when you click. Pulse does not follow next-page buttons, crawl a site or run on a schedule. Extract Page reads the rows a page has drawn; large tables that load as you scroll come out in full with the large-table export (Live in 0.5.8).
Which one for your situation
| Your situation | A good fit |
|---|---|
| The data is a real HTML table and you want it in Sheets | Table Capture |
| A long list spread over many pages | Instant Data Scraper or Web Scraper |
| The same site every week | Web Scraper (or a hosted platform) |
| A popular site with an existing recipe | Data Miner |
| Product cards, directories or search results | Pulse Extractor or Instant Data Scraper |
| The table is a screenshot, chart or scan | Pulse Extractor |
| The result is going into a report or a deck | Pulse Extractor |
How this guide was made
Disclosure: this guide is published by Pulse Extractor, which makes one of the tools listed. Every statement about another product restates what that product publishes about itself, in our own words, with a link to the source and the date we checked it; we did not test the other tools, so their entries report their claims, not our measurements. The recommendations are by situation, and Pulse is not the answer to most of them. Products change: check the sources before you decide, and tell us if something here is out of date.
Product names are trademarks of their owners. Pulse Extractor is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any other product on this page.
Sources
- Table Capture: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Table Capture: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Table Capture: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Instant Data Scraper: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Instant Data Scraper: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Instant Data Scraper: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Web Scraper: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Web Scraper: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Web Scraper: webscraper.io/pricing, checked
- Data Miner: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Data Miner: Chrome Web Store listing, checked
- Data Miner: dataminer.io/pricing, checked