# Apify MCP Server vs fastCRW

> Apify scores 78.5 (A) to fastCRW's 64.3 (B) for crawling. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-crw
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-crw.md (~5,650 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Apify MCP Server scores 78.5 (A) on agent readiness against fastCRW's 64.3 (B), and leads in every scored category. Both do crawling. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. fastCRW doesn't.

- Apify MCP Server: grade A, 78.5/100, rank #22 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/apify-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/apify-mcp.json
- fastCRW: grade B, 64.3/100, rank #478 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/crw.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/crw.json
- Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.md
- All 501 scrapers comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/web-scrapers/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Apify MCP Server (A)

Good 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:
- Reliability, 75 against 50
- Security & auth, 62 against 40
- Payments & pricing, 95 against 35
- Transparency & trust, 86 against 60

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account

Watch for: 0.19.0 and 0.20.0 (19 and 29 October 2026) changed tool behaviour with breaking changes flagged only on release day

### fastCRW (B)

Good for: Agents that want Firecrawl-style scrape, crawl, map, search and extract at lower per-page cost, or a small self-hosted engine.

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 status page shows a live check and an uptime objective but no incident history


## Why the edge

### Payments & pricing: Apify MCP Server +60

- Apify MCP Server (95): x402 on Apify's own domains. agi.apify.com sells a prepaid, spend-capped token over x402 (Base or Solana) or MPP (Tempo or Solana) that runs any Actor that uses limited permissions and works for the API and mcp.apify.com, and since October it also runs single Actors for x402 `batch-settlement` on Base, billing the real cost afterward. The direct `?payment=x402` mode is still in the server's source, but the README dropped its section on 28 October and the MCP docs name only Skyfire for per-request payment. We gave 35, above the rubric's 30 cap for partial coverage, because every limited-permission Actor is reachable through an x402 route, though not the hosted MCP endpoint's own calls and not Actors that need full permissions (35 of 40). Compute units at $0.20, $0.16 and $0.13 by plan, published without a login and re-read on 1 November (20). Free plan with $5 of usage a month, "No credit card is required" (20). An agent with a wallet gets a token with no signup (20).
- fastCRW (35): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plans are public with credit costs per operation and top-up prices per block of credits, $9 per 1,000 on Hobby down to $299 per 500,000 on Scale, but top-ups need a plan, so between plan-only and per-unit (15 of 20). 500 one-off credits with no card, plus up to 500 from onboarding tasks (20). Hosted keys need a person to sign up in a browser; the free self-hosted engine runs with no account but isn't the graded surface (0). 0 + 15 + 20 + 0 = 35.

### Transparency & trust: Apify MCP Server +26

- Apify MCP Server (86): MIT (30). Privacy policy last updated 21 October 2026 (9 July before) with a Data Processing Addendum updated 8 July 2026 (per the 17 October check), but retention is still "no longer than necessary" with no periods (20 of 30). Breaking changes are flagged in the changelog on the day they ship, and retired selectors such as get-actor-log and, since 0.19.0, source are ignored without an error. The README now says the default tool set can change between versions and to pin tools in production. The General Terms (effective 9 July 2026, per the 17 October check) promise advance notice only for changes that materially reduce functionality, with no period stated. No deprecation policy found (10 of 20). Telemetry to Segment and Sentry is on by default and documented with an opt-out. Since 0.19.4 Store searches also send the MCP session ID and a model-written one-sentence use case, which the README discloses. The policy names the EU and US as the main data locations. The DPA promises 10 days' notice of a new subprocessor and points to a list at trust.apify.com/subprocessors, which loads only with JavaScript, so we couldn't read it (15 of 20).
- fastCRW (60): The engine and MCP server are AGPL-3.0 and the SDKs MIT, while the hosted control plane is closed under terms that name no legal entity (25 of 30). The terms say crawled data is handled transiently with zero data retention for approved accounts, but the privacy policy is undated, names no controller, gives no retention periods and mentions no DPA (10 of 30). The CHANGELOG flags breaking changes, deprecated v2 extract routes return a warning on every response, and the October 2026 402 change is dated in the docs, with no standing notice policy (10 of 20). Local data-source telemetry is disclosed with an opt-out. The privacy policy names Stripe, Google Analytics, Google Ads and an X pixel, but infrastructure and search providers are unnamed and no data location is given (8 of 20). 25 + 10 + 10 + 8 = 53.

### Reliability: Apify MCP Server +25

- Apify MCP Server (75): Atlassian Statuspage at status.apify.com, history read from its RSS feed on 1 November (20). No incident since 22 September. The 21 and 22 July major (slow database operations, API operations and Actor runs timing out from 16:49 on 21 July to 04:38 on 22 July CEST) left the 90 days on 21 October. Five incidents in the 90 days from 3 August, none read as major. 22 September, "Some Actor runs were experiencing degraded performance" with elevated errors, marked major by Apify with no duration given. 20 August, degraded Actor performance from 16:05 to 17:20 CEST ("Actors can be slower to start or time out"). 13 and 14 August, the SHADER datacenter proxy group. 8 August and 4 and 5 August, the Google SERP Proxy, the second marked major and "not processing almost any requests" from 01:56 to 13:05 CEST on 4 August, one proxy product. Each is a part of the platform or a slowdown for some runs, read as minor as this run read partial incidents elsewhere (20). Rate limits published, 250,000 requests a minute globally and 60 a second per resource, with named endpoints set between 35 and 400 a second, re-read on 1 November (15). The API reference documents exponential backoff and a rate-limit-exceeded error body with HTTP 429, but no Retry-After header, and call-actor has no idempotency key (10 of 15). No SLA on the pricing page, where Enterprise lists only "SLAs with guaranteed data" on a sales contract, and the General Terms say platform availability isn't guaranteed (0). The hosted server is in production use, not labelled beta (10). 20+20+15+10+0+10 = 75.
- fastCRW (50): Graded on the hosted lines, for the hosted API and MCP server an agent would call; the self-hosted engine would read higher on the local lines. fastcrw.com/status is a first-party page with a live health check and a 99.9% monthly uptime objective, but no components with history (10 of 20). It lists no incidents and keeps no history we could read (5). Concurrency per plan is published, 3 on Free to 150 on Scale, while the request-rate guard above it is deliberately unpublished (12 of 15). The rate-limits page documents Retry-After and X-RateLimit headers, gives exponential backoff code, and separates 429 (retry) from 402 (stop). No idempotency keys for crawl, extract or monitor starts (13 of 15). Pricing mentions an SLA only as 'Premier + SLA' on Enterprise, with no terms, and the terms promise no uptime (0). The hosted service is sold on paid plans with no beta label, though the engine is at 0.41.0 (10). 10 + 5 + 12 + 13 + 0 + 10 = 50.

### Security & auth: Apify MCP Server +22

- Apify MCP Server (62): OAuth on mcp.apify.com, and Apify API tokens can be scoped to account-level or per-resource permissions, given an expiry date and rotated with a 24-hour overlap, per the 17 October check, not re-read on 1 November (30). The API reference, re-read on 1 November, still accepts the token as a `?token=` query parameter, which it calls less secure, so less 10 (20). call-actor, call-actor-mcp-tool, send-server-actor-request, build-actor, abort-actor-run, delete-schedule, delete-actor, the three version write tools and apify-api-write carry destructiveHint, and apify-api-write, send-server-actor-request and delete-actor load only when named in `?tools=`. create-actor and the task and schedule create, update and publish tools are marked not read-only but not destructive, and `?tools=` can limit a session to read tools. There's no server-side confirmation step (15 of 20). Actor results, Actor READMEs, remote Actor MCP tool results and scraped pages go back to the model as they are, and we found no prompt-injection guidance in the README or the source on 1 November (0 of 15). Every Actor run appears in the Apify Console with its input, log and cost, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November (10 of 15). SOC 2 Type II with the report on request through trust.apify.com, a disclosure policy through security@apify.com, GitHub private vulnerability reporting, and a security.txt re-read on 1 November that is valid until 1 January 2035. Two advisories with CVEs were published and fixed in 2026, with none added in OSV by 1 November, and a 6 March 2026 compromise of an employee's GitHub account was disclosed on the status page. 0.20.0 (29 October) fixed a privately reported flaw where `?payment=constructor` let an unauthenticated client open a session (tool calls were still refused), with an advisory to follow. No bug bounty found (17 of 20).
- fastCRW (40): The hosted MCP server publishes RFC 9728 metadata naming its own authorisation server, with PKCE S256, dynamic client registration and one scope, `mcp:tools`, and the API takes revocable Bearer keys from the dashboard. No key scopes or second scope found (22). The authentication page documents fastcrw.com/mcp/<API_KEY> as a way in, a key in the URL path, so less 10 (12 of 30). Tools mostly read, and data-source calls check approvals, but there is no read-only key or confirmation step for monitors (8 of 20). Managed LLM extraction, summaries and answers wrap scraped text in a nonce fence (crates/crw-extract/src/untrusted.rs), and the hardening guide treats pages as untrusted, but the MCP docs give agents no guidance on scraped content (7 of 15). Each response reports `creditsUsed`; no per-call log in the docs (5 of 15). SECURITY.md names security@fastcrw.com and GitHub private reporting with a 48-hour acknowledgement, and CI runs CodeQL and OpenSSF Scorecard. security.txt answers 404, and no bounty or certification found (8 of 20). 12 + 8 + 7 + 5 + 8 = 40.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Apify MCP Server | fastCRW | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 50 | Apify MCP Server +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 91 | Apify MCP Server +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 91 | Apify MCP Server +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 40 | Apify MCP Server +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 95 | 35 | Apify MCP Server +60 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 95 | 93 | Apify MCP Server +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 60 | Apify MCP Server +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **78.5 · A** | **64.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Apify MCP Server | fastCRW |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Apify | Nanofy OÜ |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.apify.com` | `https://fastcrw.com/mcp` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | yes, from $1/call | no |
| Licence | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Tools exposed | 47 | 11 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.apify/apify-mcp-server` | `io.github.fastcrw/crw` |
| Last release | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-04 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-09 | 2026-04-04 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-09 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk | 1.2k stars, 881 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.4/5 (8) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Apify MCP Server

- +2.0 on 1 November 2026 (BB to A): time
- -0.1 on 8 October 2026: checklist
- -2.0 on 5 October 2026 (A to BB): negative event

### fastCRW

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Apify MCP Server.** x402 on Apify's own domains, a prepaid token from agi.apify.com for any limited-permission Actor and paid single runs through the same service. Tool names and defaults still change between 0.x releases, with breaking changes flagged only on release day.

**fastCRW.** Agents get 11 compact, annotated MCP tools with bounded output, a public OpenAPI spec, refunds on failed pages and a free self-hosted engine. The hosted service has no status history, publishes no SLA terms, names its operator only on the support page, and documents an MCP address with the API key in the URL path.

## 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 call-actor-mcp-tool, not call-actor with `actor:tool`, for an Actor that runs an MCP server. List its tools first with fetch-actor-mcp-tool-list
3. Read results with get-dataset-items and set `fields` and `limit`. The default is 20 rows
4. Buy an AGI token to pay without an account. Tokens last 14 days, unused balance isn't refunded, and Actors needing full permissions refuse them
5. Pin `?tools=` in production. The default tool set changes between versions

### fastCRW

1. Connect to https://fastcrw.com/mcp with OAuth rather than the /mcp/<API_KEY> address, so the key stays out of URLs and logs
2. Branch on `errorCode`. Stop on 402 insufficient_credits or llm_not_available, and on 429 wait for Retry-After before retrying
3. Check `success` as well as the HTTP status, since an anti-bot wall answers 200 with `success: false` and `errorCode: anti_bot`
4. Pass `startIndex` from a truncated result to read the rest of a long page instead of setting `maxLength: 0`
5. Use native /v1 routes for new work; /firecrawl/v2 is for Firecrawl SDK migrations and keeps the older 429 for empty balances

## Tutorials

- [Extract a small website dataset with Apify MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tutorials/apify-mcp/), for Apify MCP Server

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Apify MCP Server or fastCRW?

Apify MCP Server scores 78.5 (A) on agent readiness against fastCRW's 64.3 (B), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Apify MCP Server and fastCRW 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 fastCRW without installing anything?

Yes. Apify MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.apify.com and fastCRW at https://fastcrw.com/mcp.

### Are Apify MCP Server and fastCRW open source?

Yes. Apify MCP Server is open source (MIT). fastCRW is open source (AGPL-3.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-crw.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-crw.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "apify-mcp", "b": "crw"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare apify-mcp crw`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/apify-mcp.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/crw.json

## Other comparisons with Apify MCP Server or fastCRW

- [Apify MCP Server vs BrowserAct](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-browseract.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Jina Reader](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-jina-reader.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Microlink](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-microlink.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Scrape.do](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrape-do.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs WebScraping.AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-webscraping-ai.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-zyte.md)
- [Bright Data vs fastCRW](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-crw.md)
- [BrowserAct vs fastCRW](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browseract-vs-crw.md)
- [Context.dev vs fastCRW](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/context-dev-vs-crw.md)
- [Crawl4AI vs fastCRW](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crawl4ai-vs-crw.md)
- [fastCRW vs Decodo Web Data API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-decodo.md)
- [fastCRW vs Diffbot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-diffbot.md)
- [fastCRW vs jevcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-jevcrawl.md)
- [fastCRW vs Jina Reader](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-jina-reader.md)
- [fastCRW vs Microlink](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-microlink.md)
- [fastCRW vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-olostep.md)
- [fastCRW vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [fastCRW vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md)
- [fastCRW vs Scrape.do](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrape-do.md)
- [fastCRW vs ScrapeGraphAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapegraphai.md)
- [fastCRW vs Scrapeless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapeless.md)
- [fastCRW vs ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapeops.md)
- [fastCRW vs ScraperAPI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scraperapi.md)
- [fastCRW vs Scrapewise](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapewise.md)
- [fastCRW vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [fastCRW vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [fastCRW vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [fastCRW vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [fastCRW vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [fastCRW vs WebScraping.AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-webscraping-ai.md)
- [fastCRW vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-zenrows.md)
- [fastCRW vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-zyte.md)
- [fastCRW vs Firecrawl MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-firecrawl-mcp.md)
- [fastCRW vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-qovia.md)
- [fastCRW vs ScrapeAtlas](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-scrapeatlas.md)
- [fastCRW vs SoldFetch](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-soldfetch.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Bright Data](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-bright-data.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Context.dev](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-context-dev.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Crawl4AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-crawl4ai.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Decodo Web Data API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-decodo.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Diffbot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-diffbot.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Firecrawl MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-firecrawl-mcp.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs jevcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-jevcrawl.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-olostep.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs ScrapeGraphAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapegraphai.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Scrapeless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapeless.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs ScraperAPI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scraperapi.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Scrapewise](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapewise.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-spider-cloud.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp