Farmaline Scraper

Extract product data, prices, stock levels, and pharmaceutical details from Belgium's largest online pharmacy with over 70,000 products.

What is Farmaline Scraper?

Farmaline.be is Belgium's biggest online pharmacy, offering over 70,000 health, beauty, and wellness products. Now part of the Redcare Pharmacy group, it serves millions of customers across the Benelux region. This scraper gives you structured access to their entire catalog through Farmaline's internal search API, delivering fast and reliable results without browser emulation.

Whether you are building a pharmacy price comparison engine, tracking health product trends across the Belgian market, or conducting pharmaceutical research, this actor provides the data foundation you need.

Common use cases:

• Pharmacy price comparison — Compare OTC drug prices across Belgian pharmacies to find the best deals for consumers
• Stock monitoring — Track availability of specific medications and supplements and get notified when they come back in stock
• Pharmaceutical market research — Analyze pricing strategies, discount patterns, and product ranges across categories like supplements, skincare, and OTC medicines
• Competitor intelligence — Monitor how Farmaline prices its catalog versus other Belgian pharmacies like Multipharma or Viata
• Health product analytics — Study trends in dosage forms, active substances, and brand popularity in the Belgian pharmacy market

What data does Farmaline Scraper extract?

• 💊 Product name & brand — Full product name and manufacturer
• 💰 Current price & original price — Including discount percentage and price-per-unit for accurate comparison
• 🏥 Pharmaceutical details — Dosage form, package size, active substances, and prescription status
• 📊 Ratings & reviews — Average customer rating and review count
• 📦 Stock status — Real-time availability information
• 🏷️ Identifiers — EAN barcode, SKU, and internal product ID
• 🗂️ Categories — Full category hierarchy (e.g., Geneesmiddelen > Pijn en koorts)
• 🌐 Bilingual support — Data available in both Dutch (NL) and French (FR)
• 🖼️ Product images — Direct image URLs

How to scrape Farmaline.be

The scraper supports three main approaches:

Search by keyword

Enter a search term like "dafalgan", "vitamine D", or "zonnebrandcreme" to find matching products. This works exactly like the search bar on Farmaline.be.

Browse by category

Use the Category field with Farmaline's internal category names: Geneesmiddelen, Supplementen, Beauty & Lichaamsverzorging, or Mama & Kind.

Filter by brand

Set the Brand field to a specific manufacturer like Dafalgan, Bioderma, Eucerin, or Metagenics to get all products from that brand.

You can combine category and brand filters with a search query for precise results. The Language toggle switches between Dutch and French product data.

Input parameters

Field	Type	Default	Description
searchQuery	String	—	Search term (e.g., "paracetamol")
category	String	—	Category filter (e.g., "Geneesmiddelen")
brand	String	—	Brand filter (e.g., "Eucerin")
maxResults	Integer	100	Maximum products to return (up to 70,000)
language	String	nl	nl for Dutch, fr for French
proxyConfiguration	Object	—	Proxy settings for large runs

Tip: Leave all filters empty and set maxResults to a high number to scrape the entire Farmaline catalog.

Output

{
    "name": "Dafalgan Forte 1g Filmomhulde Tabletten 30 Stuks",
    "brand": "Dafalgan",
    "price": 7.49,
    "originalPrice": 9.50,
    "discount": "-21%",
    "pricePerUnit": "0,25 EUR/stuk",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "ean": "5400265041640",
    "sku": "DAF-1G-30",
    "productId": "4164012",
    "inStock": true,
    "rating": 4.7,
    "reviewCount": 238,
    "url": "https://www.farmaline.be/nl/artikel/dafalgan-forte-1g-30-tabletten",
    "imageUrl": "https://www.farmaline.be/images/products/dafalgan-forte-1g-30.jpg",
    "description": "Dafalgan Forte 1g bevat paracetamol en wordt gebruikt voor de symptomatische behandeling van pijn en koorts.",
    "specs": {
        "Dosage Form": "Filmomhulde tabletten",
        "Package Size": "30 stuks",
        "Active Substances": "Paracetamol",
        "Prescription Required": "No"
    },
    "category": "Pijn en koorts",
    "categories": ["Geneesmiddelen", "Pijn en koorts", "Paracetamol"],
    "language": "nl",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-04-03T10:15:00.000Z"
}

How much does it cost?

This actor hits Farmaline's internal Algolia search API directly, making it extremely fast and efficient. No browser rendering is needed.

Volume	Estimated CU	Estimated Cost
100 products	~0.01 CU	< $0.01
1,000 products	~0.05 CU	~$0.03
10,000 products	~0.4 CU	~$0.20
70,000 products (full catalog)	~3 CU	~$1.50

Costs depend on your Apify subscription plan. The actor is free to try on Apify's free tier.

Can I integrate?

Yes. Export scraped data in any format (JSON, CSV, Excel, XML) or connect directly to your pipeline:

• Google Sheets — Auto-sync pharmacy prices to a spreadsheet
• Webhooks — Trigger your own API when a scrape finishes
• Zapier / Make — Connect to 5,000+ apps without code
• Amazon S3 / Google Cloud Storage — Store large datasets in the cloud
• Slack / Email — Get notified when prices drop or stock changes

Can I use it as an API?

Absolutely. Call the actor programmatically and get structured pharmacy data back.

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("studio-amba/farmaline-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchQuery": "ibuprofen",
    "maxResults": 50,
    "language": "nl",
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{item['name']} — EUR {item['price']} ({item.get('pricePerUnit', 'N/A')})")

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('studio-amba/farmaline-scraper').call({
    searchQuery: 'ibuprofen',
    maxResults: 50,
    language: 'nl',
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach(item => {
    console.log(`${item.name} — EUR ${item.price} (${item.pricePerUnit || 'N/A'})`);
});

FAQ

Can I scrape prescription medicines? The scraper returns data for all products listed on Farmaline, including prescription-only medicines. The specs.Prescription Required field tells you whether a product needs a prescription. Note that prescription medicines cannot be purchased online in Belgium — Farmaline lists them for information purposes only.

Does the scraper work in both Dutch and French? Yes. Set the language input to nl (Dutch) or fr (French). Product names, descriptions, and categories are fully localized. Both languages return the same products.

How often does pricing data update? Farmaline updates prices in their Algolia index in near real-time. The data you scrape reflects the current live prices on the website.

Can I get the price-per-unit for comparison? Yes. The pricePerUnit field contains the per-unit price (e.g., "0,25 EUR/stuk" or "7,49 EUR/100ml"), which is essential for comparing products with different package sizes.

What is the maximum number of products I can scrape? Farmaline's catalog contains approximately 70,000 products. You can scrape the entire catalog in a single run by setting maxResults to 70000.

Does the actor handle rate limits? Yes. Built-in retry logic handles temporary API errors. For very large runs (50,000+ products), enabling proxy rotation is recommended.

What product categories does Farmaline cover? Farmaline's catalog includes: Geneesmiddelen (medicines), Supplementen (supplements), Beauty & Lichaamsverzorging (beauty and body care), Mama & Kind (mother and child), Dier (pet care), Voeding (nutrition), and more. The categories field in the output gives you the full category hierarchy for each product.

Tips for pharmacy price comparison

If you are building a Belgian pharmacy price comparison tool, here is how to get the most value from Farmaline data:

1. Use EAN codes as the join key — The ean field is the universal product identifier. Match Farmaline products to the same products on Viata, Multipharma, or Shop Apotheke using EAN.
2. Normalize with price-per-unit — A box of 30 tablets and a box of 100 tablets are different products but treat the same condition. The pricePerUnit field lets you compare apples to apples.
3. Track discounts over time — Farmaline runs frequent promotions. Schedule daily runs and store the discount and originalPrice fields to build a historical pricing database.
4. Filter by active substance — Use the specs.Active Substances field to group products by what they actually contain (e.g., all paracetamol products regardless of brand).

Limitations

• Farmaline occasionally changes their Algolia API keys, which may require actor updates
• Product descriptions are sometimes truncated in the search API — detail page scraping would be needed for full descriptions
• Review text content is not included (only aggregate rating and count)
• Some product images may require HTTPS prefix adjustment
• Data reflects the Belgian market only (farmaline.be)

Other pharmacy scrapers

Looking for pharmacy data from other sources? Check out our complete pharmacy scraper collection:

• dm Scraper — Germany's largest drugstore chain (beauty, health, household)
• Shop Apotheke Scraper — Europe's leading online pharmacy (DE/AT/CH/BE/FR/IT)
• Viata Scraper — Belgian online pharmacy with wellness and beauty products
• Apotheek.be Scraper — Belgian pharmacy directory with locations and opening hours
• Matas Scraper — Denmark's leading beauty and pharmacy retailer
• Multipharma Scraper — One of Belgium's largest pharmacy chains

Your feedback

We continuously improve our scrapers. If you encounter issues, have feature requests, or need help integrating Farmaline data into your workflow, please open an issue or reach out through the Apify platform. Your feedback helps us build better tools.