Scrapy + CaptchaAI Integration Guide

Scrapy is the most popular Python crawling framework. This guide shows how to add CaptchaAI CAPTCHA solving to your spiders using a custom middleware.

Requirements

pip install scrapy requests

CaptchaAI Solver Module

Create captcha_solver.py in your Scrapy project root:

import requests
import time


class CaptchaAISolver:
    def __init__(self, api_key):
        self.api_key = api_key
        self.base_url = "https://ocr.captchaai.com"

    def solve_recaptcha(self, site_key, page_url, timeout=300):
        resp = requests.get(f"{self.base_url}/in.php", params={
            "key": self.api_key,
            "method": "userrecaptcha",
            "googlekey": site_key,
            "pageurl": page_url,
        })

        if not resp.text.startswith("OK|"):
            raise Exception(f"Submit failed: {resp.text}")

        task_id = resp.text.split("|")[1]
        deadline = time.time() + timeout

        while time.time() < deadline:
            time.sleep(5)
            result = requests.get(f"{self.base_url}/res.php", params={
                "key": self.api_key,
                "action": "get",
                "id": task_id,
            })

            if result.text == "CAPCHA_NOT_READY":
                continue
            if result.text.startswith("OK|"):
                return result.text.split("|", 1)[1]
            raise Exception(f"Solve failed: {result.text}")

        raise TimeoutError(f"Task {task_id} timed out")

    def solve_image(self, image_base64, timeout=120):
        resp = requests.get(f"{self.base_url}/in.php", params={
            "key": self.api_key,
            "method": "base64",
            "body": image_base64,
        })

        if not resp.text.startswith("OK|"):
            raise Exception(f"Submit failed: {resp.text}")

        task_id = resp.text.split("|")[1]
        deadline = time.time() + timeout

        while time.time() < deadline:
            time.sleep(5)
            result = requests.get(f"{self.base_url}/res.php", params={
                "key": self.api_key,
                "action": "get",
                "id": task_id,
            })

            if result.text == "CAPCHA_NOT_READY":
                continue
            if result.text.startswith("OK|"):
                return result.text.split("|", 1)[1]
            raise Exception(f"Solve failed: {result.text}")

        raise TimeoutError(f"Task {task_id} timed out")

Scrapy Middleware

Create middlewares.py:

import base64
import re
from scrapy import signals
from scrapy.http import HtmlResponse
from captcha_solver import CaptchaAISolver


class CaptchaAIMiddleware:
    """Scrapy downloader middleware that detects and solves CAPTCHAs."""

    def __init__(self, api_key):
        self.solver = CaptchaAISolver(api_key)

    @classmethod
    def from_crawler(cls, crawler):
        api_key = crawler.settings.get("CAPTCHAAI_API_KEY")
        if not api_key:
            raise ValueError("CAPTCHAAI_API_KEY setting is required")
        return cls(api_key)

    def process_response(self, request, response, spider):
        # Check for reCAPTCHA on the page
        site_key = self._find_recaptcha_key(response.text)
        if site_key:
            spider.logger.info(f"reCAPTCHA detected on {response.url}")
            token = self.solver.solve_recaptcha(site_key, response.url)
            request.meta["captcha_token"] = token
            spider.logger.info("CAPTCHA solved successfully")

        # Check for image CAPTCHA
        captcha_img = self._find_image_captcha(response)
        if captcha_img:
            spider.logger.info(f"Image CAPTCHA detected on {response.url}")
            text = self.solver.solve_image(captcha_img)
            request.meta["captcha_text"] = text
            spider.logger.info(f"Image CAPTCHA solved: {text}")

        return response

    def _find_recaptcha_key(self, html):
        match = re.search(
            r'data-sitekey=["\']([A-Za-z0-9_-]+)["\']', html
        )
        return match.group(1) if match else None

    def _find_image_captcha(self, response):
        img = response.css("img#captcha-image::attr(src)").get()
        if img and img.startswith("data:image"):
            return img.split(",", 1)[1]
        return None

Settings Configuration

Add to settings.py:

import os

CAPTCHAAI_API_KEY = os.environ.get("CAPTCHAAI_API_KEY")

DOWNLOADER_MIDDLEWARES = {
    "myproject.middlewares.CaptchaAIMiddleware": 560,
}

Spider Example

import scrapy


class ProductSpider(scrapy.Spider):
    name = "products"
    start_urls = ["https://example.com/products"]

    def parse(self, response):
        # If CAPTCHA was solved, the token is in meta
        token = response.meta.get("captcha_token")
        if token:
            # Resubmit the page with the token
            yield scrapy.FormRequest(
                url=response.url,
                formdata={"g-recaptcha-response": token},
                callback=self.parse_products,
            )
        else:
            yield from self.parse_products(response)

    def parse_products(self, response):
        for product in response.css(".product-item"):
            yield {
                "name": product.css("h2::text").get(),
                "price": product.css(".price::text").get(),
                "url": response.urljoin(
                    product.css("a::attr(href)").get()
                ),
            }

        next_page = response.css("a.next-page::attr(href)").get()
        if next_page:
            yield scrapy.Request(response.urljoin(next_page))

Retry on CAPTCHA Pages

Add automatic retry when CAPTCHAs appear:

class CaptchaRetryMiddleware:
    """Retry requests that return CAPTCHA challenge pages."""

    max_retries = 3

    def process_response(self, request, response, spider):
        if self._is_captcha_page(response):
            retries = request.meta.get("captcha_retries", 0)
            if retries < self.max_retries:
                request.meta["captcha_retries"] = retries + 1
                spider.logger.info(
                    f"CAPTCHA page detected, retry {retries + 1}"
                )
                return request.copy()

        return response

    def _is_captcha_page(self, response):
        indicators = [
            "g-recaptcha",
            "cf-turnstile",
            "captcha-image",
            "Please verify you are human",
        ]
        return any(ind in response.text for ind in indicators)

Running the Spider

export CAPTCHAAI_API_KEY="YOUR_API_KEY"
scrapy crawl products -o products.json

Troubleshooting

FAQ

Can I use this with Scrapy-Splash or Scrapy-Playwright?

Yes. For JavaScript-rendered pages, the middleware works the same way — it inspects the final HTML response for CAPTCHA elements.

Does the middleware slow down crawling?

CAPTCHA solving takes 5-15 seconds per page. Use CONCURRENT_REQUESTS to crawl other pages while waiting. Only pages with CAPTCHAs cause delays.

How do I handle different CAPTCHA types per page?

Extend the middleware's process_response method to check for Turnstile, GeeTest, or other types and call the appropriate solver method.

Related Guides

• Captcha Scraping Python Guide
• HTTPX + CaptchaAI Integration
• aiohttp + CaptchaAI Async