Diffbot
AI-powered web data extraction API with a 10B+ entity knowledge graph searchable by natural language
What is Diffbot?
Diffbot combines automatic web page extraction (Article API, Product API, Discussion API) with a continuously-updated knowledge graph of 10 billion+ entities including companies, people, products, and events. Its Knowledge Graph Search API queries this structured dataset using natural language rather than keywords, enabling precise entity-level retrieval beyond what SERP APIs provide. Diffbot was founded in 2010 by Mike Tung at Stanford University and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It uses computer vision and machine learning to extract structured data from any web page without custom selectors. Clients include Snapchat, DuckDuckGo, Cisco, and Goldman Sachs (per company website; independently unverifiable).
Diffbot was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA, USA. The firm employs 51–200 people and works primarily with clients in AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services, Research & Academia, E-commerce sectors. Its primary differentiator is: 10B+ entity knowledge graph searchable by natural language — returns structured facts about companies, people, and products, not raw SERP result lists.
Diffbot tech stack and services
| Service area | Details |
|---|---|
| Company intelligence enrichment — automatically extract firmographic data, funding, and leadership from company web pages | Available for AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services, Research & Academia, E-commerce clients |
| News monitoring where clean structured extraction (title, author, body, date) matters more than raw URL ranking | Available for AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services, Research & Academia, E-commerce clients |
| LLM knowledge base population using the continuously-updated knowledge graph as a structured world-facts source | Available for AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services, Research & Academia, E-commerce clients |
| Financial data pipelines extracting product prices, company events, and market signals from web sources at scale | Available for AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services, Research & Academia, E-commerce clients |
Diffbot use cases
Short answer: Diffbot is best suited for aI and data applications needing structured entity data, company intelligence, or clean article extraction from arbitrary web pages at scale.
| Use case | Industries | Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Company intelligence enrichment — automatically extract firmographic data, funding, and leadership from company web pages | AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services | REST API, Python SDK |
| News monitoring where clean structured extraction (title, author, body, date) matters more than raw URL ranking | AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services | REST API, Python SDK |
| LLM knowledge base population using the continuously-updated knowledge graph as a structured world-facts source | AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services | REST API, Python SDK |
| Financial data pipelines extracting product prices, company events, and market signals from web sources at scale | AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services | REST API, Python SDK |
Diffbot pricing
Short answer: Diffbot uses a monthly subscription ($299–$499/month on published tiers); enterprise custom pricing approach. Minimum engagement starts at Not publicly disclosed.
| Engagement model | Typical range | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly subscription | Variable; depends on team size | Large programmes or team augmentation |
| Enterprise contract | Variable; depends on team size | Large programmes or team augmentation |
Diffbot pros and cons
| Advantages | Things to consider |
|---|---|
| +10B+ entity knowledge graph continuously updated from the web — returns structured entity facts, not raw HTML or URL lists | -$299/month minimum subscription is high for low-query-volume use cases — no pay-as-you-go tier documented |
| +Article API auto-extracts clean body text, author, publish date, and images from any news URL without custom selectors | -Knowledge graph depth varies: company and person data is comprehensive; niche topics and non-English entities may be sparse |
| +Natural language knowledge graph search enables entity queries not achievable with keyword-based SERP APIs | -Not a real-time SERP API — knowledge graph reflects Diffbot's crawler cadence; breaking news may lag by hours |
| +Computer vision extraction adapts to layout changes automatically — no maintenance when target sites redesign | -GraphQL interface for knowledge graph queries has a steeper learning curve than standard REST/JSON SERP APIs |
| +Clients include DuckDuckGo and Goldman Sachs (per company website; independently unverifiable) |
Diffbot vs alternatives
How Diffbot compares to the other top Web Search API providers.
| Company | Best for | Key difference | Rating | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CatchAll | AI agents and LLM workflows requiring high-recall web... | Pay-per-validated-result pricing with coverage-first search that scans 50K+ pages per job — not just top-ranked SERP results | 4.8 | Full comparison |
| Exa | AI agent and LLM developers needing semantic neural... | Neural search built for agents — not a SERP scraper — with 90% token reduction via highlights and 54.4% FRAMES accuracy | 4.6 | Full comparison |
| SerpAPI | Enterprise teams needing legally protected, structured SERP data... | U.S. Legal Shield (up to $2M coverage) plus 50+ engine support and three compliance certifications in a single API | 4.4 | Full comparison |
| Tavily | AI agent developers needing a drop-in web search... | Only web search API with PII protection and prompt injection blocking built into the retrieval layer — no custom security middleware required | 4.3 | Full comparison |
| Brave Search API | Privacy-conscious AI applications and products that need a... | Only fully independent web index in this category — 30B+ pages crawled directly, not a Google/Bing scraper, with no Big Tech dependency | 4.2 | Full comparison |
| Serper | Cost-sensitive applications needing fast Google SERP results with... | Lowest barrier to entry of any Google SERP API — 2,500 free queries with no card required, and 10+ search verticals in a single endpoint | 4.1 | Full comparison |
| DataForSEO | SEO agencies, analytics platforms, and bulk data pipelines... | $0.0006 per SERP (standard queue) — the lowest published per-query price reviewed, with 700-result depth and Baidu/Naver/Seznam support | 3.9 | Full comparison |
| Perplexity Sonar API | AI products needing grounded, cited answers from the... | Search and LLM reasoning in one OpenAI-compatible call — eliminates the retrieve-chunk-embed-rank RAG pipeline entirely | 4.5 | Full comparison |
| You.com API | AI application developers needing a single API for... | Research mode autonomously decomposes complex queries into sub-searches and synthesises a long-form cited report — not just a ranked URL list | 4.0 | Full comparison |
| Bing Web Search API | Enterprise and government applications needing a compliance-certified general... | FedRAMP-authorised web search API with full Azure compliance stack — the only search API approved for US federal government application use | 3.9 | Full comparison |
| Apify | Developers needing flexible, customisable data extraction from any... | 3,000+ pre-built Actors (scrapers) for any website, each runnable as an API endpoint — more flexible than fixed-schema SERP APIs, at the cost of actor-level quality variance | 3.8 | Full comparison |
| Oxylabs SERP API | Enterprise teams needing real-time (not cached) SERP data... | Live crawling via 102M+ proprietary IPs with caller-defined JavaScript parsers — real-time data with custom output schemas, not a fixed-schema cached SERP product | 3.8 | Full comparison |
| Bright Data SERP API | Enterprise data teams needing SERP extraction at massive... | 72M+ IPs across 195 countries with city-level targeting — broadest geographic SERP coverage available, plus Amazon and Walmart e-commerce SERP in the same API | 3.7 | Full comparison |
| Webz.io | Security, intelligence, and brand monitoring teams needing real-time... | Only provider in this category with both surface web news intelligence and dark web/paste site monitoring via the Cyber API — a single platform for OSINT and brand risk | 3.6 | Full comparison |
| Aylien News API | Financial services and media intelligence teams needing pre-enriched... | NLP enrichment built into every API response — entity extraction, sentiment, and IAB topic classification included without additional processing or model calls | 3.5 | Full comparison |
| SearchAPI.io | Developers and small teams needing live Google SERP... | 100 free requests/day with no credit card across 15+ Google verticals — the lowest-friction evaluation path to live Google SERP data in this category | 3.5 | Full comparison |
| ValueSERP | Cost-driven applications needing real-time Google SERP data at... | $0.0008/search at volume — cheapest real-time (non-queued) Google SERP pricing, comparable to DataForSEO priority mode but with synchronous delivery | 3.4 | Full comparison |
| Zenserp | Solo developers and small projects needing simple, transparent-pricing... | Transparent public pricing, 100 free searches/month, and single-GET-request integration — the fastest path from idea to first live Google SERP result | 3.4 | Full comparison |
| Google Custom Search API | Applications needing a policy-compliant, Google-branded search API restricted... | Official Google product with a full Google Cloud compliance chain (SOC2, ISO 27001, FedRAMP) — the only search API with direct Google licensing and zero ToS scraping risk | 3.3 | Full comparison |
Diffbot FAQ
What is Diffbot?
Diffbot combines automatic web page extraction (Article API, Product API, Discussion API) with a continuously-updated knowledge graph of 10 billion+ entities including companies, people, products, and events. Its Knowledge Graph Search API queries this structured dataset using natural language rather than keywords, enabling precise entity-level retrieval beyond what SERP APIs provide. Diffbot was founded in 2010 by Mike Tung at Stanford University and is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It uses computer vision and machine learning to extract structured data from any web page without custom selectors. Clients include Snapchat, DuckDuckGo, Cisco, and Goldman Sachs (per company website; independently unverifiable).
How much does Diffbot charge?
Diffbot uses monthly subscription ($299–$499/month on published tiers); enterprise custom pricing. Minimum engagement starts at Not publicly disclosed. A discovery call is required to get project-specific quotes.
What tech stack does Diffbot use?
Diffbot works with REST API, Python SDK, JavaScript SDK, JSON-LD output, GraphQL (Knowledge Graph). Primary industries served include AI / LLM Workflows, Financial Services, Research & Academia, E-commerce.
Is Diffbot right for enterprise?
AI and data applications needing structured entity data, company intelligence, or clean article extraction from arbitrary web pages at scale. 51–200 team size. Key consideration: $299/month minimum subscription is high for low-query-volume use cases — no pay-as-you-go tier documented.
What are the best Diffbot alternatives?
The best alternatives to Diffbot depend on your use case. Top options are:
- CatchAll: pay-per-validated-result pricing with coverage-first search that scans 50k+ pages per job — not just top-ranked serp results
- Exa: neural search built for agents — not a serp scraper — with 90% token reduction via highlights and 54.4% frames accuracy
- SerpAPI: u.s. legal shield (up to $2m coverage) plus 50+ engine support and three compliance certifications in a single api
Compare Diffbot with other Web Search API providers
Last reviewed: June 2026. Verify all details directly with Diffbot before making a decision.