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Head to head · Crawling · October 2026 research run

Apify MCP Server vs Scrapeless

Apify MCP Server has a score of 78.6 (A) against Scrapeless's 54.3 (C). Both do crawling. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 60 points. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. Scrapeless doesn't.

Apify MCP ServerApify · MCP server A78.6/100#11 of 452 ScrapelessScrapeless (NST Labs Tech) · HTTP API C54.3/100#326 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Apify MCP Server for

  • schema & documentation (+26)
  • agent ergonomics (+42)
  • security & auth (+27)
  • payments & pricing (+60)
  • maintenance & community (+14)
  • transparency & trust (+32)

Pick Scrapeless for

  • reliability (+10)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runApify MCP ServerScrapelessEdge
Reliability16%206575Scrapeless +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29266Apify MCP Server +26
Agent ergonomics13%16.29250Apify MCP Server +42
Security & auth14%17.56235Apify MCP Server +27
Payments & pricing10%12.59535Apify MCP Server +60
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.89581Apify MCP Server +14
Transparency & trust7%8.88856Apify MCP Server +32
Negative events≤15-3-2
Total78.6 · A54.3 · C

Facts side by side

FactApify MCP ServerScrapeless
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorApifyScrapeless (NST Labs Tech)
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.apify.comhttps://api.scrapeless.com
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402yes, from $1/callno
LicenceMITMIT
Tools exposed3525
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registrycom.apify/apify-mcp-serverio.github.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server
Last release2026-09-302026-09-16
Popularity8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.4/5 (8)2/5 (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.

Scrapeless

Hosted streamable HTTP MCP at api.scrapeless.com/mcp with header auth, plus a stdio package, both in the official MCP registry. llms.txt quotes Deep SerpApi at $0.1 per 1,000 while the plan data charges $1 per 1,000 for Google Search.

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

Scrapeless

  1. Use scrape_markdown for reading pages and save the browser_* tools for clicks and logins, since browser time bills by the hour
  2. Call browser_close when done so the session and its billing stop
  3. Set limit on crawl_start. Unset, it defaults to 10,000 pages
  4. Crawls are asynchronous. Call crawl_start, then poll crawl_result with the returned id
  5. Set SCRAPELESS_API_KEY for the stdio server. Older guides use SCRAPELESS_KEY, which still works as a fallback

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