For marketers and data analysts, X (formerly Twitter) is a powerful engine of public conversation and real-time data. To truly harness its potential, you need to go beyond surface-level observations. You need to scrape tweets, export followers, and gather detailed analytics to build a data-driven strategy. But with a vast number of tools on the market, finding a reliable, safe, and feature-rich solution can be a challenge.
This article lists the 5 best X (Twitter) scraping tools available today. We’ll explore what makes each tool unique, focusing on their capabilities for tasks like scraping tweets, exporting follower lists, and more. Our top choice offers a comprehensive, all-in-one solution that ensures your data gathering is not only effective but also compliant with X's policies.
1. Circleboom: The Ultimate All-in-One Solution
When it comes to a powerful, user-friendly, and compliant platform for X (Twitter) data, Circleboom stands in a league of its own. As an Enterprise X Customer, it provides a suite of tools that ethically gather and analyze data directly from the official API. This ensures your account is always safe while you get the deep insights you need to succeed.
Circleboom isn't just a scraper; it's a complete social media management and analytics platform that transforms raw data into actionable intelligence.
Key Features for Data-Driven Marketers:
- Scrape Tweets from Any Account: Easily scrape tweets from any public X account. Simply enter a username, and Circleboom will list and download up to 3,200 of their latest posts. This feature is perfect for competitor analysis, content research, and discovering what makes successful profiles tick. You can export these tweets to Excel or CSV files for easy sorting and analysis.
- Export Followers and Followings: This is a crucial feature for anyone serious about audience analysis. With Circleboom, you can export followers and followings of any public account. This is invaluable for understanding a competitor's audience, identifying potential partners, or simply backing up your own network. The exported data includes key user metrics, bios, and more, giving you a deep look into any network.
- Export Twitter Bookmarks: Have you been saving important tweets for later? Circleboom lets you export Twitter bookmarks, providing a convenient way to back up and analyze your saved content. You can organize your research, archive important posts, and easily access your most valuable saved data outside of the X platform.
- Follower Analytics and Demographics: Beyond simple scraping, Circleboom provides an in-depth look at your audience. Get detailed graphs on follower demographics, including gender, language, and geographic location. This data is essential for crafting targeted content and establishing a strong, authentic brand voice.
- Inactive and Fake Follower Detection: Don't let bot followers hurt your reputation. Circleboom's powerful AI helps you find and remove fake, spammy, or inactive accounts, leading to a cleaner, more credible follower base.
Why Circleboom is our #1 pick: It provides the most comprehensive and compliant solution on the market. It excels at core scraping tasks like scraping tweets and exporting follower and following lists, while also offering advanced analytics and management features that are essential for a professional social media strategy.
2. Apify
Apify is a versatile platform that uses "Actors"—pre-built scraping scripts—to extract data from a wide range of websites, including X. It's a great option for users who need flexibility and a wide array of scraping options.
Key Features:
- Flexible Scraping: Apify offers a variety of actors that can be used to scrape tweets and user profiles.
- Scalable: The platform is designed to handle large-scale data collection projects, making it suitable for big data analysis.
- API Access: Apify provides an API for seamless integration with other tools and workflows.
Best for: Developers and data scientists who need to scrape tweets from various platforms and want the flexibility to customize their data extraction process.
3. Octoparse
Octoparse is a no-code visual web scraping tool that allows non-technical users to build scrapers with a simple point-and-click interface. It's a great choice for beginners and marketers who want to quickly gather data without needing to write any code.
Key Features:
- Visual Interface: Build a scraper by simply clicking on the data you want to extract, such as tweets or follower information.
- Cloud-Based: Scrapers can be run on Octoparse's cloud servers, saving local computing power.
- Templates: Offers pre-built templates for scraping data from X and other popular sites.
Best for: Marketers and analysts with no coding experience who need a simple way to scrape tweets and other public data from the web.
4. ScraperAPI
ScraperAPI is a powerful infrastructure for developers who are building their own scraping solutions. While not a dedicated tool for X, it simplifies the most challenging aspects of scraping, such as proxy management and CAPTCHA solving.
Key Features:
- Proxy Rotation: Provides a large pool of IP addresses to prevent your scraper from being blocked by X.
- CAPTCHA Handling: Automatically handles CAPTCHAs, which is a common obstacle for scraping bots.
- Geotargeting: Allows you to simulate requests from different geographic locations.
Best for: Developers and engineers who are building custom tools to scrape tweets and other data and need a reliable, scalable infrastructure to support their efforts.
5. GetOldTweets3 (and similar open-source libraries)
For those with coding skills and a limited budget, open-source Python libraries like GetOldTweets3 (and its modern successors) provide a free way to scrape tweets without relying on the official API.
Key Features:
- Free: These libraries are open-source and do not require a subscription.
- Historical Data: Can sometimes access tweets that are older than what the standard API allows.
A major caution: These tools operate outside of X’s official API and often violate its Terms of Service. They can be unreliable, frequently breaking when X updates its website, and their use may lead to account suspension. This is a high-risk method for professional use.
Conclusion: Making a Data-Driven Decision
Choosing the right Twitter scraping tool is a critical step for any professional. While the market offers a range of options, from free open-source libraries to powerful paid platforms, the best solution is one that is both effective and compliant.
For marketers and data analysts who need to reliably scrape tweets, export followers and followings, and get deep insights without risking their account, a tool like Circleboom is the clear choice. Its comprehensive, API-compliant features and user-friendly interface make it the ideal partner for turning X data into a competitive advantage.