Link.fish
Web and SaaS
web data extraction API
SHOW HN2017
201points
77comments
#160of 2,242 in 2017
Top 8%of 2017 by points
How HN took it
CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments
6 positive, 34 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 11 critical, out of 53 comments about the project. Thread score -0.14.
Execution: 1 for, 7 againstIdea: 2 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 2 againstPricing: 1 for, 0 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Cheaper than alternatives like Diffbot
From 2 comments
At a first look it's much cheaper than Diffbot :)
raresp on HNDisclaimer: I work at Diffbot Major differences I can see (OP feel free to correct if I'm wrong): Link.fish * doesn't provide a web crawler * relies heavily on microdata,…
dwynings on HN
Works well on many real estate and product sites
From 2 comments
I've been checking out link.fish for a while now - awesome product! My interest is in scraping real estate websites and it seems to do quite a good job with many of the sites…
etewiah on HNI tried a link to some product in some ecommerce…
wiradikusuma on HN
Objections
Fails on many sites and returns 500 errors
From 3 comments
Having done a ton of scraping in the past (especially around ecommerce and products), this looks pretty cool. A couple comments in general: 1. Personally I think its better to be…
callmeed on HNhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series) Error: 500 Message: { "status": 500, "message": "Internal Server Error" }
ojanik on HNI tried a random reddit thread. Did not fetch comments, only information about the submission. Then I tried it with HN. Same. Then I tried it with a github issue. Same. Then I…
lawl on HN
Relies on microdata and custom parsers, so it works only on specific sites
From 2 comments
It works, but only on that site - a similar site (http://studio68london.net/work/timetable/ fails). I want to be able to point something at an arbitrary URL and have it extract…
nailer on HNDisclaimer: I work at Diffbot Major differences I can see (OP feel free to correct if I'm wrong): Link.fish * doesn't provide a web crawler * relies heavily on microdata,…
dwynings on HN
Credits abstraction is confusing
From 2 comments
Having done a ton of scraping in the past (especially around ecommerce and products), this looks pretty cool. A couple comments in general: 1. Personally I think its better to be…
callmeed on HNLooks good, but why complicate the pricing with "credits" when 1 credit==1 request. The tiers already reference parallel "requests", so you could just say N requests instead of N…
mmahemoff on HN
Requests
Focus on one data type such as products or real estate
From 2 comments
Having done a ton of scraping in the past (especially around ecommerce and products), this looks pretty cool. A couple comments in general: 1. Personally I think its better to be…
callmeed on HNI've been checking out link.fish for a while now - awesome product! My interest is in scraping real estate websites and it seems to do quite a good job with many of the sites…
etewiah on HN
Browser extension to avoid blocking
From 2 comments
One solid way would be to offer the service as browser addon. With that you can avoid any blockage, because the user itself is doing it.
sharpshadow on HNI've been checking out link.fish for a while now - awesome product! My interest is in scraping real estate websites and it seems to do quite a good job with many of the sites…
etewiah on HN
Recursive contact information scraping
From 1 comment
The feature I'd be looking for in this is to be able to recursively scrape for contact information (email, phone number, etc.)... that doesn't seem possible with this?
danielvinson on HN
Questions
How does it compare to Diffbot
From 1 comment
Well done! How does this compare to diffbot's website extraction? https://www.diffbot.com/
mericsson on HN
What do priority tiers mean in practice
From 1 comment
In the pricing, different tiers have different "priorities". It would be helpful to know what these "priorities" mean in the real world. If I submit a request as a low-priority…
sjs382 on HN
Alternatives named
Diffbot
From 2 comments
Well done! How does this compare to diffbot's website extraction? https://www.diffbot.com/
mericsson on HNDisclaimer: I work at Diffbot Major differences I can see (OP feel free to correct if I'm wrong): Link.fish * doesn't provide a web crawler * relies heavily on microdata,…
dwynings on HN
Apify
From 1 comment
Is this similar to Apify? https://www.apify.com/
kashprime on HN
Page.REST
From 2 comments
Nice work! I also built something very similar called Page.REST (Show HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15189099) Page.REST supports extracting contents using CSS…
laktek on HNThis looks almost exactly like the functionality provided by https://page.rest/
holtalanm on HN