# Apify MCP Server vs ScrapeGraphAI

> Apify MCP Server has a score of 78.6 (A) against ScrapeGraphAI's 68.3 (B). Both do crawling. The largest gap is transparency & trust, 27 points. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. ScrapeGraphAI doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapegraphai
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapegraphai.md (~1,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapegraphai.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapegraphai.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: 2026-10-05

Apify MCP Server has a score of 78.6 (A) against ScrapeGraphAI's 68.3 (B). Both do crawling. The largest gap is transparency & trust, 27 points. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. ScrapeGraphAI doesn't.

- Apify MCP Server: grade A, 78.6/100, rank #11 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/apify-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/apify-mcp.json
- ScrapeGraphAI: grade B, 68.3/100, rank #128 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapegraphai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapegraphai.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Apify MCP Server for agent ergonomics (+20), security & auth (+23), payments & pricing (+5), maintenance & community (+25), transparency & trust (+27).

Pick ScrapeGraphAI for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Apify MCP Server | ScrapeGraphAI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 64 | Apify MCP Server +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 88 | Apify MCP Server +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 72 | Apify MCP Server +20 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 39 | Apify MCP Server +23 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 95 | 90 | Apify MCP Server +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 95 | 70 | Apify MCP Server +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 61 | Apify MCP Server +27 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **78.6 · A** | **68.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Apify MCP Server | ScrapeGraphAI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Apify | ScrapeGraphAI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.apify.com` | `https://v2-api.scrapegraphai.com` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | yes, from $1/call | payer tooling only |
| Licence | MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 35 | 20 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.apify/apify-mcp-server` | `io.github.ScrapeGraphAI/scrapegraph-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-07-31 |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk | 2.4k npm/wk, 46k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.4/5 (8) | 3/5 (2) |

## 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.

**ScrapeGraphAI.** An agent can mint an account and key over x402 or MPP with no signup. Rate limits and plan prices differ between docs pages.

## 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. Direct `?payment=x402` refuses the rest
5. Ask for `get-actor-run-log`, not `get-actor-log`. The old name is ignored without an error

### ScrapeGraphAI

1. Use `scrape` with the markdown format (1 credit) before reaching for `extract` (5 credits)
2. Read `GET https://v2-api.scrapegraphai.com/api/agent/protocols` for current packs and prices before paying over x402
3. MCP tool calls stop at 60 seconds. Use `crawl_start` and poll for anything longer
4. Back off 1, 2 then 4 seconds on a 429 `rate_limit_exceeded`. No Retry-After is sent
5. Use Orthogonal's x402 gateway when you need to pay per call without a key

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