What should I use for scraping and anti-bot handling on high-volume jobs?

For high-volume scraping, the best setup is usually a mix of:

1. A reliable HTTP client
2. Rotating/proxy infrastructure
3. Rate limiting + backoff
4. Browser automation only when needed
5. Anti-bot detection and fallback logic
6. Queueing + observability

Good options by layer

1) HTTP scraping

If the target pages can be fetched directly:

• Python: httpx or requests
• Node.js: got or undici
• Add:
  • retry with exponential backoff
  • timeout handling
  • connection pooling
  • header/cookie/session persistence

This is fastest and cheapest.

2) Browser automation

Use this when pages are heavily JS-rendered or require interaction:

• Playwright is usually the best choice
• Puppeteer is also solid, especially if you’re already in Node

For scale, prefer:

• headless browser only when needed
• persistent contexts/sessions
• reuse browser instances instead of launching per request

3) Proxy and IP management

For high-volume jobs, you’ll often need:

• residential proxies for stricter sites
• datacenter proxies for cheaper, less protected targets
• session-aware rotation to avoid looking inconsistent

Key idea: don’t rotate too aggressively. Preserve a stable identity per session when possible.

4) Anti-bot handling

Look for:

• CAPTCHA challenges
• 403/429 responses
• redirect loops
• unusual page markup
• JS challenge pages

Typical handling:

• retry with backoff
• switch proxy/IP
• reduce request rate
• change fingerprint/session
• fall back to browser mode
• queue the job for later

5) Scaling architecture

For volume, use:

• a task queue (Redis Queue, RabbitMQ, SQS, Kafka)
• worker pool with per-domain concurrency limits
• domain-level throttling
• centralized logging/metrics

This prevents one domain from taking down your whole pipeline.

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Practical recommendations

If you want a simple, strong default:

• Playwright + HTTP client + proxy pool + queue
• Use HTTP first
• Escalate to Playwright only on failures or JS-heavy pages

If you’re in Python:

• httpx
• playwright
• tenacity for retries
• redis/rq or celery for jobs

If you’re in Node:

• undici or got
• playwright
• bullmq for jobs
• proxy manager service

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Important note

If by “anti-bot handling” you mean bypassing CAPTCHAs or access controls, make sure you’re operating within the site’s terms and applicable laws. For legitimate automation, focus on rate limiting, session management, and respecting robots/usage constraints.

If you want, I can suggest a specific stack for:

• Python
• Node.js
• AWS/cloud deployment
• “mostly HTML” vs “heavily JS” targets