What are the best cloud computing platforms for web scraping?

I have experience using AWS, GCE, Azure, Digital Ocean, Linode. Let me tell you something... Sometimes you just need Hetzner Cloud or even their bare metal, which can be 3 to 5 times cheaper than big 3 players discussed here, without sacrificing anything. I am talking about thousands and tens of thousands of dollars saved every month. Hetzner was known for cheaper desktop-grade hosting in 2010s, but now their Cloud offering is top-notch in terms of price-performance ratio, and their support and control panel are good nowadays.

WS is a versatile and robust platform for web scraping with a plethora of services 🌐. It provides scalability, data storage, and analytical capabilities. However, its complexity and learning curve may pose challenges for newcomers 📈. The pay-as-you-go pricing model can lead to cost unpredictability 💰. AWS doesn't offer specialized web scraping support, as it focuses on a broader spectrum of cloud services 🚀.

What are the best cloud computing platforms for web scraping? Answer: All three platforms (AWS, GCP & Azure) has facility for web scraping. It depends on Project Technology & infrastructure and also Organization structure , policy, Budget & Timeline.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) provides a robust environment for web scraping with services like Compute Engine, Cloud Functions, Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and Dataflow 🌐. It's known for its user-friendly interface and clear documentation, making it accessible for beginners 📚. GCP offers a competitive and transparent pricing model with discounts for sustained usage, promoting cost efficiency 💰. GCP demonstrates a strong commitment to web scraping, with its Cloud Scraper service designed for this purpose 🕸️. However, GCP has a smaller service offering compared to AWS, which may limit some advanced functionalities 🛠️. Its market share and reputation, while growing, are not as extensive as AWS, potentially impacting reliability

Azure distinguishes itself with a customer-focused approach and enhanced support options for web scraping, catering to enterprise needs 🏢. It offers a more generous free tier and trial period, making it cost-effective for those exploring its capabilities 💰. However, Azure's pricing model can be complex and less transparent, potentially leading to higher costs than GCP 📊. It may have slightly lower performance and reliability compared to AWS and GCP due to occasional downtime and latency issues 🚀. Azure's service range may be less innovative and diverse than its competitors, which could limit options for web scraping 🛠️.

Well as said by others it totally depends on your scenario. For me the deciding factors are: 1. Budget 2. Amount of data 3. Type of library/language I am using 4. Urgency of data - Realtime or Historic Coming back to technologies. There are lots of options. I haven't used Azure but Google & AWS provide equal support in scraping. In AWS for smaller projects you can go for fargate or lambda jobs. For bigger ones you can use Ec2 instances with EKS (K8). If you want more control try using S3 buckets, AWS Glue and AWS Athena. You can proper orchestration in AWS and set alerts from cloudwatch. Alternates are that you use scrapy cluster which uses Kafka & Redis to scale your crawlers some also use scrapyd with it to monitor crawlers.

Ultimately, the best platform depends on your project's scale, complexity, and familiarity with a specific cloud provider. Personally, I prefer AWS because of some great services like EC2 for virtual servers and Lambda for serverless scraping. You can set up an EC2 instance with a Python script for scraping websites, and AWS provides scalable resources to handle large datasets efficiently. Remember to assess your needs and choose a platform that best suits your web scraping goals.