HACKER Q&A
📣 arkmm

Web scraping in production?


Are any of you maintaining any web scrapers in production?

I've done some for side projects, automated testing, and personal scripts (checking personal bank balances, getting a Global Entry interview slot, etc.), but it always feels very brittle.

Curious what applications people have in industry and what sorts of techniques people use for reliability.

  👤 sargstuff Accepted Answer ✓
excel web scraping[0] (vs. using python[1] and/or odbc/delimited files)

A few 2025 use cases [2],[3]:

   Use publically available database information (construction, taxes, sales, traffic report, proposed building/zone changes, etc) to find out what's going on withing an area aka. zip code, housing area, 'vacation spot', etc
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   creative take on topic:

      modern looming / static 'threaded' approach : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43977384

      Structurally reprogrammable magnetic maetamaterials hold promise for biomedicine, soft robotics. ("web" support formed via scraping material in relevant patterns) : https://techxplore.com/news/2025-05-reprogrammable-magnetic-metamaterials-biomedicine-soft.html

      3d printed smart-fabrics : https://techxplore.com/news/2025-05-d-smart-fabrics-flexibility-ability.html
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[0] : excel scraping : https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=6coVzIt93vk

[1] : python scraping : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo8-nEuDBkk

[2] : https://dataforest.ai/blog/top-web-scraping-use-cases

[3] : https://www.parsehub.com/blog/web-scraping-examples/

👤 9d
Scraping is inherently brittle, but it can be very useful for short-term scraping in very specific circumstances. I haven't had any in maybe 10 years.