# Apify MCP Server vs Diffbot

> Apify scores 76.5 (BB) to Diffbot's 54.3 (C) for crawling. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-diffbot
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-diffbot.md (~2,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-diffbot.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-diffbot.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Apify MCP Server scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do crawling. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. Diffbot doesn't.

- Apify MCP Server: grade BB, 76.5/100, rank #28 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/apify-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/apify-mcp.json
- Diffbot: grade C, 54.3/100, rank #687 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/diffbot.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/diffbot.json
- Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.md
- All 167 scrapers comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/web-scrapers/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Apify MCP Server (BB)

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, 65 against 55
- Schema & documentation, 92 against 83
- Agent ergonomics, 92 against 63
- Security & auth, 62 against 21
- Payments & pricing, 95 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 95 against 57
- Transparency & trust, 86 against 68

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- 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

### Diffbot (C)

Good for: Agents that want typed article, product or discussion data from arbitrary pages without writing selectors, and teams that also want the Knowledge Graph.

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 token is sent as the `token` query parameter on Extract and Knowledge Graph calls. It is the only scheme in the OpenAPI file


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Apify MCP Server | Diffbot | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 55 | Apify MCP Server +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 83 | Apify MCP Server +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 63 | Apify MCP Server +29 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 21 | Apify MCP Server +41 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 95 | 40 | Apify MCP Server +55 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 95 | 57 | Apify MCP Server +38 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 86 | 68 | Apify MCP Server +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **76.5 · BB** | **54.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Apify MCP Server | Diffbot |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Apify | Diffbot Technologies Corp. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.apify.com` | `https://api.diffbot.com/v3` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | yes, from $1/call | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Diffbot's Terms of Use. The Python client, the TypeScript client and the agent skills are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 35 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.apify/apify-mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-06-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-09 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-09 | 2025-08-29 |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| 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 | yes |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk | 9 npm/wk, 45 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.4/5 (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.

**Diffbot.** Extract returns typed JSON for articles, products, discussions and other page types with no selectors to write, under a public OpenAPI 3.1 contract and a free plan that needs no card. The API token travels in the URL query string, tokens carry no scopes, and no security page, certification or security.txt was found.

## 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

### Diffbot

1. Call `GET https://api.diffbot.com/v3/analyze?url=<encoded URL>&token=<token>` when the page type is unknown. Use `/v3/article` or `/v3/product` to force one schema
2. Keep the token out of logs and shared URLs. It sits in the query string, so any proxy or log that records the request URL records the token
3. Stay under 5 calls a minute on Free, 5 a second on Startup and 25 a second on Plus. On 429 wait at least one second and back off
4. Check a 200 response for `errorCode`. The official client raises `ExtractionError` when a 200 reports a failed extraction
5. Set `useProxy=default` only when a site blocks the fetch. A proxied page costs 2 credits against 1
6. Install `diffbot` from PyPI, not `diffbot-python`, which stopped at 0.3.0

## Questions

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

Apify MCP Server scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Apify MCP Server and Diffbot need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call Apify MCP Server and Diffbot without installing anything?

Yes. Apify MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.apify.com and Diffbot at https://api.diffbot.com/v3.

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

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


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Apify MCP Server or Diffbot

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- [Apify MCP Server vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md)
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