DEV Community: Daniel Igel

Scraping Cloudflare-protected pages without running your own headless browser

Daniel Igel — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:31:55 +0000

Most "just use Puppeteer" advice falls apart the moment the target sits behind Cloudflare's JS challenge. You end up maintaining a headless fleet, rotating fingerprints, and babysitting timeouts — for what should be a one-line fetch.

I wrapped a challenge-solving backend behind a tiny REST API: you POST a URL and get back rendered HTML, plain text, or just the fields you want via CSS selectors. The challenge gets solved server-side, so your code stays a single HTTP call.

curl --request POST \
  --url 'https://web-scraping-api-cloudflare-bypass.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/extract' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: web-scraping-api-cloudflare-bypass.p.rapidapi.com' \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"url":"https://example.com","selectors":{"title":"h1","price":".price"}}'

Response gives you { "title": "...", "price": "..." } — no browser, no proxy rotation, no DOM parsing on your side. There's also /api/v1/scrape if you just want the raw HTML or text of a page.

Free tier to try it on RapidAPI: https://rapidapi.com/danieligel/api/web-scraping-api-cloudflare-bypass

I built this because I was tired of running a headless cluster for occasional scrapes. Happy to answer questions about the challenge-solving part or selector edge cases.

Cut signup spam: syntax + MX + disposable email validation in one call

Daniel Igel — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:31:52 +0000

Client-side regex catches typos, not throwaway inboxes. By the time a fake test@mailinator.com is in your DB, your activation rate and sender reputation already took the hit.

This API does three checks in one request: RFC-5322 syntax, a live MX lookup (does the domain actually accept mail?), and a disposable/role-based check (info@, admin@, temp-mail domains). It also suggests fixes for obvious typos like gmail.con.

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://email-validation-api37.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/validate?email=test@gmail.con' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: email-validation-api37.p.rapidapi.com'

You get back validity, MX status, disposable/role_based flags, and a did_you_mean suggestion. There's a batch endpoint (POST /api/v1/validate) for cleaning an existing list.

Free tier on RapidAPI: https://rapidapi.com/danieligel/api/email-validation-api37

Built this to gate signups on a side project. Curious what your stack currently does for MX checks — happy to compare notes.

Add geo-personalization with one IP lookup (IPv4/IPv6, batch)

Daniel Igel — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:31:48 +0000

Geo-personalization — currency, language, "stores near you" — usually means shipping a 60 MB GeoIP database and keeping it updated, or paying per-seat for an SDK. For most apps you just need country + city from an IP.

One GET does it, IPv4 and IPv6:

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://ip-geolocation-api20.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/geo?ip=8.8.8.8' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: ip-geolocation-api20.p.rapidapi.com'

Returns country, region, city, lat/lon, timezone. There's /api/v1/geo/me to resolve the caller's own IP (handy for edge functions) and /api/v1/geo/batch for bulk enrichment of logs or signups.

Free tier on RapidAPI: https://rapidapi.com/danieligel/api/ip-geolocation-api20

I built this so I didn't have to bundle MaxMind into every small project. What do you use IP geo for — personalization, fraud, analytics?

Drop-in sentiment, summary & NER without managing an LLM key

Daniel Igel — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:31:45 +0000

Adding "summarize this" or "is this review positive?" to an app shouldn't mean signing up for an LLM provider, managing a key, handling rate limits, and writing prompt+parsing glue. Sometimes you just want a JSON endpoint.

Five NLP tasks, same shape, no LLM key on your side:

curl --request POST \
  --url 'https://ai-text-analysis-api.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/sentiment' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: ai-text-analysis-api.p.rapidapi.com' \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"text":"The delivery was late but support fixed it instantly."}'

Endpoints: /sentiment, /summarize, /entities (NER), /classify (zero-shot into your own categories), /keywords. Each returns clean JSON — drop it straight into your UI.

Free tier on RapidAPI: https://rapidapi.com/danieligel/api/ai-text-analysis-api

Built this to stop re-writing the same LLM plumbing in every project. What NLP task would you want as a one-liner?

Generate OG / social-preview images on the fly (screenshots-as-a-service)

Daniel Igel — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:31:42 +0000

Dynamic OG images and "preview this URL" thumbnails are a pain to self-host: you ship Playwright/Chromium, fight cold starts on serverless, and watch memory spike. For most use cases a hosted endpoint is enough.

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://website-screenshot-api8.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/screenshot?url=https://example.com&format=png&full_page=true' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: website-screenshot-api8.p.rapidapi.com'

Full-page or viewport, PNG/JPEG/WebP. There's a POST /api/v1/screenshot with the full option set (dimensions, delay, format) when you need more control.

Free tier on RapidAPI: https://rapidapi.com/danieligel/api/website-screenshot-api8

I built this to render social-preview cards without a headless cluster. What are you generating screenshots for — previews, monitoring, thumbnails?

Free-tier currency conversion straight from the ECB feed

Daniel Igel — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:31:09 +0000

Most currency APIs gate the daily ECB reference rates behind a paid plan — even though the source feed is public. If you just need "convert 100 USD to EUR" for a checkout or dashboard, that's overkill.

curl --request GET \
  --url 'https://currency-exchange-rate-api11.p.rapidapi.com/api/v1/convert?from=USD&to=EUR&amount=100' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_RAPIDAPI_KEY' \
  --header 'x-rapidapi-host: currency-exchange-rate-api11.p.rapidapi.com'

Returns the converted amount + the rate used. Also /api/v1/rates (all rates for a base), /api/v1/currencies (supported list), and /api/v1/history (a currency's historical rates).

Free tier on RapidAPI: https://rapidapi.com/danieligel/api/currency-exchange-rate-api11

Built this on top of the ECB daily feed so small projects don't pay for reference rates. What do you use FX conversion for?