5 Best Alternatives to Cloudscraper for Web Scraping in 2025

Running into issues with Cloudscraper lately? You’re not the only one. Once a go-to tool for bypassing Cloudflare’s anti-bot protections, Cloudscraper is now struggling to keep up. With Cloudflare constantly updating its defenses, what used to work like a charm now breaks more often than not.

If Cloudscraper has been letting you down, don’t worry. There are much better options out there in 2025—tools that are more reliable, actively maintained, and far more capable of handling today’s complex anti-bot challenges.

In this guide, you’ll find the five best Cloudscraper alternatives, why they’re worth considering, and which one might be the right fit for your next scraping project.

What is Cloudscraper and Why You Might Need an Alternative

Cloudscraper is a Python library built to help scrape websites protected by Cloudflare. It works on top of the popular Requests library and tries to get past Cloudflare’s bot checks by solving JavaScript challenges.

The idea sounds great on paper—but in practice, especially in 2025, Cloudscraper falls short.

Here’s why:

• It’s no longer well maintained. Without regular updates, it simply can’t keep up with Cloudflare’s evolving security measures.
• Struggles with tougher protections like Bot Management v2, which now includes behavior analysis and fingerprinting.
• Can’t really run JavaScript, which is a major downside for modern websites that rely heavily on dynamic rendering.
• Fails on CAPTCHA pages, especially when reCAPTCHA or hCAPTCHA gets triggered.
• No support for user-like actions like scrolling, clicking, or interacting with the page—things that often help bypass bot detection.

Because of these growing limitations, many developers are turning to more robust tools that either fully automate browser behavior or offer advanced APIs that handle these challenges for you.

Top 5 Alternatives to Cloudscraper

1. Proxies

Sometimes, the simplest tools are the most effective. High-quality proxies—especially residential, rotating, or ISP proxies—can do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to bypassing Cloudflare and other bot defenses.

While proxies aren’t a complete scraping solution on their own, pairing them with tools like Requests, Playwright, or Puppeteer can make all the difference in evading detection.

Key Features:

• Residential and ISP IPs that mimic real user traffic
• Automatic rotation for scale and anonymity
• Geo-targeting options (country, city, ASN)
• Support for both HTTP and SOCKS protocols
• Often bundled with session control features

Example Use:

import requests

proxies = {
    "http": "http://username:password@proxy-provider.com:8000",
    "https": "http://username:password@proxy-provider.com:8000"
}

response = requests.get("https://www.example.com", proxies=proxies)

print(response.text)

Pros:

• Gives you control over IPs and request behavior
• Can be paired with almost any scraping tool
• Helps reduce CAPTCHAs and 403 blocks
• Works with both simple scripts and browser automation

Cons:

• Quality varies by provider
• Residential proxies can get expensive
• Still need a scraper (like Requests, Playwright, etc.) to use them effectively

2. Playwright

Playwright, built by Microsoft, is a powerful library for browser automation. It lets you control real browsers—Chrome, Firefox, and Safari—programmatically. It’s an excellent option for scraping JavaScript-heavy websites and handling sites with modern anti-bot defenses.

Key Features:

• Cross-browser support
• Supports Python, JavaScript, Java, and .NET
• Auto-waiting and smart selectors
• Network interception and request control
• Mobile emulation and device spoofing

Example Use:

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

def scrape_with_playwright():
    with sync_playwright() as p:
        browser = p.chromium.launch()
        page = browser.new_page()
        page.goto("https://www.example.com")
        content = page.content()
        browser.close()
        return content

html_content = scrape_with_playwright()
print(html_content)

Pros:

• Gives you full control over browser interactions
• Can mimic human behavior to avoid detection
• Very well documented and actively developed

Cons:

• Uses more system resources than lightweight libraries
• Not as plug-and-play as API-based solutions
• Requires some setup and understanding of browser automation

3. Selenium

Selenium has been around for a long time, and while it’s more commonly used for automated testing, it’s also frequently used in scraping—especially for websites that need a full browser to load properly.

Key Features:

• Compatible with all major browsers
• Multi-language support (Python, Java, C#, etc.)
• Mature ecosystem with lots of plugins and tools
• Can simulate nearly any user behavior

Example Use:

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager

driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=Service(ChromeDriverManager().install()))
driver.get("https://www.example.com")
content = driver.page_source
driver.quit()

print(content)

Pros:

• Widely supported and stable
• Works well with sites requiring user interaction
• Huge developer community

Cons:

• Slower than modern tools like Playwright
• Requires separate WebDriver installs
• Needs extra configuration to bypass modern bot detection

4. Puppeteer

Puppeteer is a Node.js library developed by Google’s Chrome team. It’s designed for automating Chrome/Chromium and works exceptionally well for scraping JavaScript-driven content. There’s also a Python version (Pyppeteer), though it’s less mature.

Key Features:

• High-level control over Chromium
• Fast, stable, and well-integrated with Chrome DevTools
• Useful for screen scraping, screenshots, PDF generation
• Supports stealth plugins for anti-bot evasion

Example Use (Node.js):

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

(async () => {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://www.example.com');
  const content = await page.content();
  await browser.close();
  console.log(content);
})();

Example Use (Python via Pyppeteer):

import asyncio
from pyppeteer import launch

async def scrape_with_pyppeteer():
    browser = await launch()
    page = await browser.newPage()
    await page.goto('https://www.example.com')
    content = await page.content()
    await browser.close()
    return content

html_content = asyncio.get_event_loop().run_until_complete(scrape_with_pyppeteer())
print(html_content)

Pros:

• Excellent for scraping dynamic content
• Seamless Chromium integration
• Great performance when tuned correctly

Cons:

• Limited to Chromium-based scraping
• Python support is unofficial and not always stable
• Needs extra work to bypass advanced bot protection

5. ScraperAPI

ScraperAPI is another API-based solution that lets you scrape websites without managing proxies, browsers, or CAPTCHAs yourself. It’s similar to ZenRows but with its own feature set and pricing.

Key Features:

• Automatic proxy rotation
• Built-in JavaScript rendering
• CAPTCHA handling
• Geolocation targeting
• Simple REST API integration

Example Use:

import requests

url = "https://www.example.com"
api_key = "your_scraperapi_key"

response = requests.get(
    f"https://api.scraperapi.com/?api_key={api_key}&url={url}&render=true"
)

if response.status_code == 200:
    print(response.text)

Pros:

• Easy to integrate
• No infrastructure needed
• Pay only for successful responses

Cons:

• Paid plan required
• Less fine-grained control compared to browser automation
• Proxy costs can add up with high volume

Comparison Table

Final Thoughts

Cloudscraper had its moment, but the web’s defenses have evolved—and so must our scraping tools. Whether you’re scraping for data analysis, competitive research, or just trying to keep up with a changing website, the tools above offer modern, reliable ways to do it.

If you want something that just works, ZenRows or ScraperAPI are great API-driven options—ideal if you don’t want to worry about proxies, CAPTCHAs, or JavaScript rendering.

If you’d rather have full control and don’t mind a bit more setup, Playwright stands out as the most flexible and future-proof choice among browser automation libraries. Selenium still holds its ground for those who are used to it, and Puppeteer is a solid pick if you’re working in a Chrome-only environment.

Choose based on your budget, tech stack, and how much effort you want to put into setup—and you’ll have a much smoother scraping experience than Cloudscraper can offer in 2025.