Table Capture and Instant Data Scraper alternatives

Tables and lists are different jobs

People search for “Table Capture alternative” and “Instant Data Scraper alternative” as if the two did the same thing. They overlap, but they start from different ends.

• Table tools look for things that are already tables — HTML <table> elements and grid components with rows and column headers — and convert them faithfully, header row included.
• List scrapers look for any repeating pattern on a page and guess which parts are fields. That is the right approach for a page of product cards, where there is no table to find, and it can be the wrong one for a real table, where the guess may split or merge columns.

Pick the kind that matches your page first; the brand comes second.

Side by side (as of 16 October 2026)

Data Miner's Chrome Web Store listing is titled “Data Scraper - Easy Web Scraping” and links to dataminer.io. Instant Data Scraper's listing is offered by Flavr Technology, LP; Table Capture's by George Mike. Table Capture's Pro list also includes PNG screenshots of tables, Office 365 export, site recipes and PDF table export; its Cloud plan adds Google Sheets sync and AI features.

When to use which

Instant Data Scraper — list and item pages, free

If your data is a page of products, listings, profiles or search results, Instant Data Scraper is a strong first try. Its listing describes AI-based detection of the relevant data, a wait for dynamic content, adjustable delays, infinite scroll and automatic “next” pagination, with Excel or CSV export — all free. It also says scraped data does not leave your browser.

Data Miner — repeat jobs on popular sites, multi-page crawls

Data Miner's strength is its library of extraction recipes for well-known websites and its automated crawling through paginated results, plus extras like form filling from a spreadsheet. The free starter plan is metered in page credits (500 a month, per the listing), so it suits occasional crawls or people who will pay for volume.

Table Capture — quick table copies, Google Sheets, PDF tables

Table Capture copies tables to the clipboard with proper separators and exports to Google Sheets on its free features, with exports of up to 250 rows. Direct Excel and CSV downloads, scroll-loaded and multi-page tables, Markdown and PDF tables are Pro features. If you live in Office 365 or need tables out of PDFs, its Pro plan covers things GridScoop does not.

GridScoop — real tables and JavaScript grids, including virtualized ones

GridScoop is for tables with headers: classic HTML tables (merged cells expanded correctly) and the grid components that dashboards and admin panels use. It detects grids that only render the visible rows and can scroll through them and stitch every row together. Excel, CSV, JSON, Markdown and Copy for Sheets are all in the free plan.

Instant Data Scraper not working? Common causes

Most “not working” reports come down to a handful of situations, and some apply to any scraper:

1. It picked the wrong block. Detection is a prediction. Ask it to try another candidate on the page, or adjust the selection, before giving up.
2. The data had not loaded yet. Pages that fetch data after loading can look empty at first. Raise the delay and maximum wait settings and run it again.
3. Only the first page or first screen came out. Turn on infinite scroll for feeds, or point it at the site's “next” control for paginated results.
4. The data is inside a frame. Extensions often see only the main page. Right-click the area, open the frame in a new tab, and run the tool there.
5. The page is a real table, not a list. Pattern detection can split one column into two or join two into one. A table exporter keeps the table's own columns and header row.
6. The grid is virtualized. If the grid keeps only the visible rows in the page, a tool that reads the page once gets those rows only. Compare your row count with the grid's own total.

Where GridScoop fits — and where it does not

Use GridScoop when the data is a table or grid and you want every row of it in Excel or CSV. It runs only when you click its icon, reads only that tab, and builds the file inside your browser; the only network request it ever makes is the Pro licence check.

Do not use it for things it was not built for: it does not crawl lists of URLs, it does not scrape card layouts that are not tables, and it does not read PDFs. In version 1.0, grids inside a shadow root are not scanned, Merge pages works only with pagination that loads in place, and full-grid capture stops at 100,000 rows, 4 million cells, 400 screens or 90 seconds — and tells you when it stopped early.

On pricing: the free plan includes every feature with 300 exported rows a day, and a single table larger than that still exports in full once a day. Pro is $15 a year and removes the daily allowance. Step-by-step use is in how to export a table from a website to Excel.

GridScoopTables and JS data grids to Excel, CSV, JSON or Markdown, including virtualized grids · every feature free, 300 rows a day

Add to Chrome — free