Alternate Scraper

Pull product listings from Alternate.de, one of Europe's biggest PC hardware and electronics shops. GPUs, CPUs, RAM, SSDs, monitors, peripherals -- if it plugs in, Alternate probably sells it.

This scraper works differently from most: it parses Alternate's a.productBox card layout directly from listing pages using got-scraping, so you get name, brand, price, delivery status, specs, and star ratings without visiting every individual product page. Fast and efficient.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQuery	String	No	Free-text search, e.g. "RTX 4070" or "Ryzen 9"
categoryUrl	String	No	Alternate.de category URL, e.g. https://www.alternate.de/Grafikkarten
maxResults	Integer	No	Max products to return (default: 100)
proxyConfiguration	Object	No	Proxy settings

At least one of searchQuery or categoryUrl is required.

Output fields

Field	Type	Example
name	String	"ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4070 Ti OC"
brand	String	"ASUS"
price	Number	849.90
originalPrice	Number	899.90
currency	String	"EUR"
productId	String	"1234567"
inStock	Boolean	true
deliveryInfo	String	"Auf Lager, Lieferung in 1-2 Werktagen"
rating	Number	4.7
reviewCount	Number	48
imageUrl	String	Product thumbnail
specs	Object	{"GPU": "RTX 4070 Ti", "VRAM": "12 GB GDDR6X"}
description	String	Subtitle/short specs line

How pagination works

Alternate shows ~24 items per page. The scraper reads the "X von Y Ergebnisse" counter on the first page to calculate total pages, then fetches each page sequentially. Failed pages get one retry after a 2-second wait.

Cost

Only listing pages are fetched (no product detail pages), making this one of the cheapest scrapers around. ~0.2 compute units per 1,000 products.

Gotchas

• German-language site. All product names, specs, and delivery info come in German.
• Prices are in EUR with German formatting (comma for decimals, dot for thousands).
• Specs come from the listing card bullet list, not the full product page. You get the key highlights but not every detail.
• Datacenter proxies recommended for runs over 500 products.

How to scrape Alternate data

1. Go to this actor's page on the Apify Store.
2. Click Try for free to open it in Apify Console.
3. Configure your search query or URL, set the maximum number of results, and adjust proxy settings if needed.
4. Click Start and wait for the run to finish.
5. Download your data in JSON, CSV, Excel, or connect it to your workflow via API.

You can also schedule regular runs, set up webhooks for real-time notifications, or integrate the results directly into your application using the Apify API.

Tips and tricks

• Start small: test with maxResults: 5 before running large scrapes.
• Use proxies: residential proxies give the best success rates for Alternate.
• Schedule runs: set up recurring runs to keep your data fresh automatically.
• Integrate via API: use the Apify API or client libraries to fetch results programmatically.
• No login required: this actor scrapes publicly available data without needing an account.

Limitations

• Data is scraped from the public website and may change without notice.
• Some products or listings may not be available in all regions.
• Very large scraping jobs may be slower due to proxy rotation and rate limiting.
• Respect the website's terms of service and use responsibly.

Features

• No login required — scrapes publicly available data from Alternate without needing credentials or cookies.
• Structured output — results are returned as clean JSON objects, ready for processing.
• Pagination handling — automatically follows multiple pages of results.
• Proxy support — configurable proxy settings for reliable, large-scale scraping.
• Flexible input — search by keyword, provide specific URLs, or crawl categories.
• Scheduled runs — run on a schedule to keep your dataset up to date automatically.
• API access — integrate results into your workflow using the Apify API or webhooks.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Alternate? Web scraping of publicly available data is generally permitted. This actor only accesses information that is publicly visible to any website visitor. Always review the website's terms of service before scraping.

How often should I run this scraper? For price monitoring or competitive intelligence, daily or weekly runs are common. Set up a schedule in Apify Console to automate this.

Can I export the data to Google Sheets or Excel? Yes. After each run, you can download results in CSV, JSON, or Excel format directly from Apify Console. You can also connect results to Google Sheets using Apify integrations.

What if the scraper stops working? Websites change their structure occasionally. If you notice issues, please open an issue on the actor's page. We actively maintain this scraper and fix issues promptly.

Need help?

If you have questions about this actor, need a custom modification, or want automated data delivery, reach out at studioamba.dev or open an issue on this actor's page.

We maintain 300+ web scrapers across Europe and offer managed data services for businesses that need structured data on a recurring basis.