The global web scraping software market was valued at $1.01 billion in 2024 and is projected to surpass $2.49 billion by 2032. APIs are at the heart of this expansion, as they enable scalable, developer-friendly workflows for real-time data extraction and automation. Internal data from the Apify platform reveals how APIs are continuing to shape the web scraping industry.
API trends in 2024
The doubling of Apify's API usage in 2024 mirrors the significant increase in monthly active users, emphasizing the growing reliance on API-driven solutions for automation and data extraction. Between January 2023 and October 2024, API calls surged from 3.6 billion to 6.8 billion, making up 87% of all Actor runs. Monthly active users climbed from 20,843 in January 2024 to 55,002 by December.
Together, these metrics reflect a broader shift toward scalable and efficient web scraping workflows as more users adopt the Apify platform to integrate APIs into their operations.
Web scraping APIs and cloud infrastructure
Web scraping APIs have become a dominant trend because they simplify the scraping process by abstracting away common challenges like rate-limiting, JavaScript rendering, and data parsing. However, despite their advantages, an API-only approach lacks a critical element for scaling: infrastructure.
Reliable infrastructure is a requirement for scraping operations to run smoothly and without interruptions. This is why services offering cloud infrastructure, especially those tailored to web scraping needs, like Apify, have seen significant growth. These platforms combine web scraping APIs with the scalability and reliability of the cloud to provide a comprehensive solution for large-scale scraping.
This trend is evident in the growth of activity on the Apify platform, particularly in the number of successful Actor builds. These builds, which represent the deployment of custom workflows often used for web scraping and automation, have grown from 16,809 in January 2023 to 34,217 in October 2024, a 103.56% increase. This significant growth highlights the increasing reliance on cloud-based solutions to handle complex scraping tasks and address scalability challenges effectively.
The future of APIs in web scraping
If current trends continue, we expect Apify API usage to exceed 10 billion calls annually. This underscores the growing reliance on APIs as the backbone of web data collection and integration.
