cloro
Comparisons

Best ChatGPT scraper tools for 2025: extract the unextractable

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#ChatGPT#Scraping#Tools
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There are two ChatGPTs.

There is the API (what developers use), and there is the Web Interface (what 200 million people use).

They are not the same.

The API gives you raw text generation. The Web Interface gives you search, citations, image generation, custom GPTs, and brand recommendations.

If you are a marketer, researcher, or developer trying to understand how ChatGPT interacts with the real world, the API is useless. You need to see what the user sees. You need to know if ChatGPT is citing your competitor, if it’s hallucinating your pricing, or if it’s recommending your product.

To get that data, you need to scrape the web interface (chatgpt.com).

But OpenAI has built one of the most fortified fortresses on the internet. Cloudflare protections, dynamic Server-Sent Events (SSE), and aggressive auth-walls make scraping it a nightmare.

We tested the top tools on the market to see which ones can actually breach the wall.

Table of contents

Why the official API isn’t enough

You might be asking: “Why scrape when I can just pay OpenAI for the API?”

Here is the difference:

  1. Citations: The Web UI browses the internet and cites sources. The standard API (unless you build a complex RAG pipeline) does not.
  2. Search Behavior: The Web UI decides when to search. Capturing this “intent” is crucial for SEO.
  3. Ecosystem: The Web UI includes Custom GPTs, which are becoming a massive traffic source.
  4. Reality Check: You want to know what users see, not what a raw model outputs in a vacuum.

If you are doing ChatGPT visibility tracking, scraping is the only way.

1. cloro (Best for monitoring & structured data)

The specialized AI-Search scraper.

Most scrapers treats ChatGPT like any other website. cloro treats it like a search engine.

It is the only tool on this list specifically architected to parse the complex, streaming response of ChatGPT and convert it into structured business intelligence. It doesn’t just give you the HTML; it gives you the meaning.

Key Features

  • Citation Parsing: Automatically extracts every link ChatGPT cites, allowing you to see exactly where it’s getting its information.
  • Sentiment Analysis: Analyzes the tone of the response towards your brand.
  • Multi-Model Support: Scrape GPT-4o, o1, and even legacy models seamlessly.
  • Managed Auth: Handles the complex login and session management (cookies, 2FA) so you don’t have to.

Pros

  • No Maintenance: OpenAI updates their UI weekly. cloro fixes the selectors instantly.
  • Search Intent: Detects if ChatGPT triggered a web search or generated text from memory.
  • Compliance: Built for enterprise monitoring with strict data privacy controls.
  • Rich Formats: Returns HTML, Markdown, and raw text for full flexibility.

Cons

  • Niche: It is built for monitoring and intelligence, not for “free chat generation” (abusing the free tier).

Pricing

Per-query pricing model that scales with your monitoring needs.

2. Apify (Best for actors & serverless)

The marketplace for scrapers.

Apify is a platform where developers publish “Actors” (pre-built scrapers). There are several community-maintained ChatGPT scrapers on the platform.

Key Features

  • ChatGPT Actor: A pre-built script that spins up a browser, logs in, and dumps the conversation to JSON.
  • Serverless Infrastructure: You don’t manage servers; you just call the API.
  • Dataset Export: Easily push data to Zapier, Google Sheets, or Airbyte.

Pros

  • Flexibility: You can fork the actor code and modify it.
  • Community: If the main actor breaks, the community usually flags it quickly.
  • Cost: Pay for compute time + platform fees. Can be cheap for low volume.

Cons

  • Reliability: Since these are community-maintained, they often break when OpenAI changes a div class. You are at the mercy of the maintainer.
  • Auth Issues: You often have to extract your own cookies manually and paste them into the actor.

3. Bright Data (Best for infrastructure)

The brute force approach.

Bright Data’s Scraping Browser is a superpower. It’s a headful browser hosted on their infrastructure that automatically rotates proxies and fingerprints to look like a real user.

Key Features

  • Unlocker Technology: Automatically solves Cloudflare challenges and CAPTCHAs.
  • Residential Proxies: The best IP network in the world.
  • Puppeteer/Playwright Compatible: You write standard code, but connect to their browser websocket.

Pros

  • Undetectable: Extremely hard for OpenAI to block.
  • Scale: You can spin up 1,000 browsers simultaneously.
  • Control: You have full control over the browser actions.

Cons

  • Development Required: You still have to write the parsing logic yourself.
  • Cost: Expensive per GB/hour.
  • Overkill: Too much friction for simple monitoring tasks.

4. Browserless (Best for headless chrome)

The developer’s toolkit.

Browserless (now owned by Nstbrowser) provides high-performance headless Chrome APIs. It’s great if you want to build your own scraper but don’t want to manage Docker containers for Chrome.

Key Features

  • Stealth Mode: Plugins to hide navigator.webdriver flags.
  • Debug Live View: Watch the browser execute in real-time.
  • PDF/Screenshot: Easy capture options.

Pros

  • Performance: Very fast browser startup times.
  • Pricing: Reasonable usage-based pricing.
  • Open Source: You can self-host the Docker image if you want.

Cons

  • Anti-Bot: Their standard evasion is good, but might struggle against OpenAI’s highest security levels without extra proxy configuration.
  • No Pre-built Logic: You are building from scratch.

5. Playwright (Best for DIY)

The open-source standard.

If you have $0 budget and lots of time, you build it yourself with Playwright.

Key Features

  • Microsoft Backed: Reliable, modern, and fast.
  • Codegen: Record your clicks and generate code.
  • Multi-Language: TS, Python, C#, Java.

The DIY Reality Check

Writing a Playwright script to login to ChatGPT is easy. Keeping it running is hard.

  • Cloudflare: You will need to use playwright-extra and stealth plugins.
  • IP Blocks: You will need to buy residential proxies.
  • Selectors: You will need to update your code every Tuesday when OpenAI pushes updates.

Pros

  • Free: Open source.
  • Control: 100% customizable.

Cons

  • Maintenance Hell: Be prepared to fix your script constantly.

The technical challenges of scraping ChatGPT

Why is this so much harder than scraping a blog?

1. Streamed Responses (SSE) ChatGPT doesn’t give you the text at once. It streams it token by token using Server-Sent Events. Your scraper needs to listen to the network socket or wait for the “Stop Generating” button to appear. Learn more about scraping ChatGPT technical details.

2. Shadow DOM & Dynamic Classes OpenAI uses randomized CSS classes (e.g., .text-token-text-primary). You can’t rely on them. You need to use robust XPath selectors based on content or aria-labels.

3. Auth & Session Management Logging in programmatically is difficult due to 2FA and email verification. The best scrapers manage session cookies persistence so you don’t have to login for every request.

Comparison table

ToolTypeParsing LogicMaintenanceBest For
cloroManaged APIIncludedZeroBrand Monitoring
ApifyPlatformCommunityMediumOne-off tasks
Bright DataInfrastructureDIYLowEnterprise Scale
BrowserlessHeadless BrowserDIYHighDevelopers
PlaywrightLibraryDIYVery HighHobbyists

Conclusion

If you are a developer who enjoys cat-and-mouse games, use Playwright with Bright Data proxies.

If you need a quick json dump for a project, grab an Apify actor.

But if you are a business that needs reliable, structured data to monitor your brand and track your Share of Voice in the AI era, cloro is the only tool purpose-built for the job.

Stop fighting Cloudflare. Start analyzing data.

Check what AI says about your brand Read our docs