Free alternative

Free alternative to ScrapingBee

ScrapingBee costs €16 a month. Maxun does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.

Public entry price, taken from ScrapingBee’s website (scrapingbee.com). Over a year, that is €192 that stays in your pocket.

What replaces ScrapingBee

The main alternative

Maxun

🟡 Intermediate⏱️ ~20 min to installSave €16/mo

Maxun turns any website into clean data without writing a line of code: close to 18,000 stars on GitHub, an AGPL licence, and a free version you install yourself. You build robots in two ways. In recorder mode, you browse the site and click on what you want to collect: the robot replays the path on every run, following pages included. In AI mode, you describe what you need in one sentence, for example “the top 50 movies, their length and their rating”, and it builds the robot for you, with Claude, ChatGPT or a free local model through Ollama. It can also turn a page into Markdown or a screenshot, crawl a whole site, search the web, watch a page and flag its changes, collect data behind a login, and run all of it on a schedule. Results come out as CSV or JSON, go to Google Sheets, Airtable or a webhook, and Claude can drive Maxun through its MCP server. The point to know: the free version does not have the anti blocking infrastructure of their cloud. No automatic proxy rotation, no captcha solving: on sites that block robots, you have to plug in your own proxies, and those are paid. That is exactly what ScrapingBee charges for. On the hardware side, Docker Compose starts five services, including a browser: plan for at least 4 GB of free memory. The project is still at version 0.0.47, and a serious flaw was fixed in June 2026 (version 0.0.42): keep it updated. And as with any extraction tool, respect the sites' terms and the GDPR as soon as you collect personal data.

Loucash’s verdict on Maxun

7/10

Maxun has what ScrapingBee does not: you build your robots without code, by clicking on the page or describing what you want in one sentence. For collecting data from public sites, prices, listings, catalogues, it is free with no page limit. What I like: the AI mode with a local model through Ollama, so no cost per page, and the MCP server that lets Claude run the robots for me. Why 7 and not more: the free version lacks what ScrapingBee charges for, rotating proxies and captcha solving. On a site that blocks robots, you will have to pay for proxies or move to their cloud. The project is still at version 0.0.47, with a flaw fixed in June 2026, so updates are a must. And you need Docker and a machine with some memory.

Who it is for: You want to collect data from public sites on a regular basis (prices, listings, catalogues, content for Claude) without coding or paying per page. If you need to extract heavily protected sites at scale, ScrapingBee or a proxy service will still be needed.

See the full page →See the tool ↗

Maxun versus ScrapingBee: the match

  • Price

    Maxun

    €0 on your machine

    ScrapingBee

    €16/month (Hobby)

  • Pages a month

    Maxun

    Unlimited

    ScrapingBee

    About 15,000 with JavaScript

  • Protected sites (proxies, captchas)

    Maxun

    Your own proxies, paid

    ScrapingBee

    Included

ScrapingBee ↗

The prompt that installs Maxun

Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.

Installe Maxun sur ma machine : c'est la plateforme open source qui remplace ScrapingBee pour extraire des données de sites web (dépôt GitHub getmaxun/maxun, site maxun.dev). Vérifie d'abord que Docker est installé et que la machine a au moins 4 Go de mémoire libres. Suis ensuite le guide Docker Compose de la documentation (docs.maxun.dev) : récupère le docker-compose.yml et le fichier d'exemple des variables d'environnement du dépôt, remplace toutes les valeurs d'exemple par des mots de passe et des clés secrètes solides, et lance l'ensemble. Si c'est sur un serveur, place l'interface derrière mon nom de domaine en HTTPS. Pour le mode IA, branche ma clé Anthropic, ou installe Ollama si je préfère un modèle local gratuit. Crée ensuite avec moi un premier robot sur un site public de mon choix, en mode enregistrement puis en mode IA, et montre-moi comment exporter en CSV, envoyer les résultats dans Google Sheets et programmer un passage chaque jour. Explique-moi aussi quoi faire si un site bloque le robot (proxies), et comment mettre Maxun à jour. Explique chaque étape simplement, je débute.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.

Frequently asked questions

Is Maxun really free?
Yes. Maxun is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. ScrapingBee, on the other hand, costs €16 a month.
Do I need to code to install Maxun?
No. The level is intermediate and the install takes about 20 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
How is it different from ScrapingBee?
Maxun does most of what ScrapingBee does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
Do I own my data?
Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.

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