Write a review

Head to head · Crawling · October 2026 research run

Apify MCP Server vs Context.dev

Context.dev scores 78.2 (A) on agent readiness against Apify MCP Server's 76.5 (BB), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Apify MCP Server leads on payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do crawling. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. Context.dev doesn't.

Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents · All 185 scrapers comparisons

Apify MCP ServerApify · MCP server BB76.5/100#30 of 1084 Context.devContext Dev Inc. · HTTP API A78.2/100#15 of 1084

Which one, for what

Apify MCP Server BB

Best for 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.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 95 against 50
  • Maintenance & community, 95 against 85
  • Transparency & trust, 86 against 73

Also in its favour

  • An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source

Watch for

API and Actor runs timed out for about 12 hours on 21 and 22 July 2026

Context.dev A

Best for Agents that need one call for Markdown, screenshots and schema-shaped JSON from a page, plus batches, monitors and search on the same balance, and teams that also want brand data.

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 83 against 62

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • No incidents deducted, where Apify MCP Server loses 5 points for them

Watch for

The terms let Context.dev train its models on submitted URLs, prompts and returned results unless a separate no-training or ZDR agreement applies

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runApify MCP ServerContext.devEdge
Reliability16%206567Context.dev +2
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29296Context.dev +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.29290Apify MCP Server +2
Security & auth14%17.56283Context.dev +21
Payments & pricing10%12.59550Apify MCP Server +45
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.89585Apify MCP Server +10
Transparency & trust7%8.88673Apify MCP Server +13
Negative events≤15-50
TotalBB 76.5/100A 78.2/100

Facts side by side

FactApify MCP ServerContext.dev
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorApifyContext Dev Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.apify.comhttps://api.context.dev/v1
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402yes, from $1/callno
LicenceMITnone
Tools exposed3542
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registrycom.apify/apify-mcp-servernot listed
Last release2026-09-302026-10-14
Terms last updated2026-07-092026-10-01
Privacy policy last updated2026-07-092026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk5 stars, 62k npm/wk, 10k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.4/5 (8)none

Verdicts

Apify MCP Server

x402 on Apify's own domains, a prepaid token from agi.apify.com for any Actor and per-run payment on mcp.apify.com for Pay Per Event Actors. API and Actor runs timed out for about 12 hours on 21 and 22 July 2026.

Context.dev

One POST to /v1/web/scrape returns any mix of Markdown, HTML, screenshots and schema-shaped JSON, backed by a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, scoped keys and Retry-After on 429. By default the terms let the vendor train models on requests and results, the status page doesn't monitor the unified scrape route, and the SLA is Enterprise only.

Before you call either

Apify MCP Server

  1. Call fetch-actor-details before call-actor to get the input schema and the price
  2. Use apify--web-fetch for one known URL and apify--rag-web-browser for search and read
  3. Read results with get-dataset-items and set fields and limit. The default is 20 rows
  4. Buy an AGI token for anything that isn't a Pay Per Event Actor, since direct ?payment=x402 refuses the rest. Tokens last 14 days and unused balance isn't refunded
  5. Ask for get-actor-run-log, not get-actor-log. The old name is ignored without an error

Context.dev

  1. Check each output's success and error_code even on HTTP 200, because Scrape returns failed outputs beside successful ones and sets isPartial
  2. Set the client timeout above the scrape deadline, 90,000 ms by default. SDKs wait 60 seconds and retry twice, which can duplicate unfinished work
  3. Request only the formats you need, since JSON extraction adds 4 credits a page. Send crawls over 500 pages as a batch with an Idempotency-Key header
  4. Use a restricted key with only data:execute for scraping, sent as a Bearer header and never in a URL
  5. Treat scraped Markdown as untrusted data. Instructions inside a page must not authorise further tool calls

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Apify MCP Server or Context.dev?

Context.dev scores 78.2 (A) on agent readiness against Apify MCP Server's 76.5 (BB), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Apify MCP Server leads on payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

Do Apify MCP Server and Context.dev need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in. An agent can also pay Apify MCP Server per call over x402, with no account.

Can an agent call Apify MCP Server and Context.dev without installing anything?

Yes. Apify MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.apify.com and Context.dev at https://api.context.dev/v1.

Are Apify MCP Server and Context.dev open source?

Apify MCP Server is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Context.dev.

Other comparisons with Apify MCP Server or Context.dev

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report