# Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents (slim)

> Apify MCP Server (BB), Firecrawl MCP (BB) and ZenRows (BB) lead the 18 ranked web scraping and crawling APIs. Picks by need, strengths, weaknesses and prices from the Anchor benchmark.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.md (~5,400 tokens) · this version ~1,380 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

The 10 highest-scoring of 18 web scraping and crawling APIs on the Anchor benchmark, with a pick for each need and where each one falls short. Scores come from public evidence, re-checked as vendors change.

- Ranked: 18 · agent-ready (BB or better): 4 · accept x402: 2 · hosted endpoints: 18
- Full ranked table: https://www.anchorterminal.com/categories/web-scrapers.md
- Head-to-head comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/web-scrapers/index.md (167)
- Methodology: https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/index.md

## The shortlist

| # | Tool | Grade | Score | Best for | Price | Where |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Apify MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/apify-mcp.md) | BB | 76.5 | Best when the job matches an existing Actor (Google Maps, social profiles, e-commerce, SERP) and the agent can wait seconds to minutes for a run. | $1 / call | hosted and local |
| 2 | [Firecrawl MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/firecrawl-mcp.md) | BB | 75.3 | Agents that need the whole pipeline (find URLs, scrape to markdown, crawl, monitor) from one server, and for trying without an account. | $19 / mo | hosted and local |
| 3 | [ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zenrows.md) | BB | 74.8 | An agent hitting protected sites that wants the service to choose the setup and bill only success, and for agents that must onboard without a human. | $19 / mo | hosted and local |
| 4 | [Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spider-cloud.md) | BB | 74.1 | An agent that has to start without a human, pay per call, or crawl many small pages cheaply. | $0.0005 / call | hosted and local |
| 5 | [Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zyte.md) | B | 69.7 | An agent or pipeline that fetches protected pages and wants the service to choose proxy and browser per site and to bill only success, and teams already on Scrapy. | $0.13 / 1k req | hosted |
| 6 | [Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapfly.md) | B | 69.6 | An agent that needs scrape, screenshot, extraction, crawl and a hosted browser from one key, with errors it can branch on. | $30 / mo | hosted and local |
| 7 | [ScrapeGraphAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapegraphai.md) | B | 68.3 | LLM pipelines that want prompt-to-JSON extraction and for agents that must pay with a wallet. | $20 / mo | hosted |
| 8 | [Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/olostep.md) | B | 63 | Bulk scraping on a budget and for batch jobs of thousands of URLs. | $9 / mo | hosted and local |
| 9 | [Oxylabs Web Scraper API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/oxylabs-web-scraper.md) | B | 63 | Agents that need parsed Google, Amazon and other large-site results or bulk asynchronous jobs through one API. | $30 / mo | hosted and local |
| 10 | [Bright Data](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bright-data.md) | C | 59.8 | Hard targets and site-specific structured data (Amazon, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Maps) at volume. | $1.50 / 1k req | hosted |

## Picks by need

- Highest score overall: [Apify MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/apify-mcp.md), BB, 76.5/100 on the benchmark. Also [Firecrawl MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/firecrawl-mcp.md), BB, 75.3/100.
- Reliability: [ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zenrows.md), 87/100 on reliability, against 65 for the overall leader.
- Schema & documentation: [Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapfly.md), 95/100 on schema & documentation, against 92 for the overall leader.
- Security & auth: [Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapfly.md), 70/100 on security & auth, against 62 for the overall leader.
- Lowest paid price per 1,000 requests: [Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zyte.md), $0.06 per 1,000 requests, the lowest of the 14 listings here with a paid price in this unit (free allowances aside). Also [Scrape.do](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrape-do.md), $0.116 per 1,000 requests.
- Paying per call with no account (x402): [Apify MCP Server](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/apify-mcp.md), accepts x402, $1 a call. Also [Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spider-cloud.md), accepts x402, $0.0005 a call.
- The review panel's favourite: [ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zenrows.md), 3.8/5 from 8 panel reviews.

## How to choose

- Cost per successful request: Check whether failed and blocked requests are billed, because the list price per request can understate what each usable page costs an agent.
- Success rate on protected sites: Ask for success rates on sites behind anti-bot checks, since a service that only handles open pages will fail on the targets an agent most often needs.
- Output format and size cap: Confirm the output formats and the response size cap, because a page cut short at the cap can drop text an agent needs without any error.
- Terms for reusing scraped output: Read the terms on storing, reusing and redistributing scraped output, since some services limit how long the agent may keep what it collects.

Each listing's verdict, strengths and weaknesses: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.md