# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapeless
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapeless.md (~1,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapeless.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapeless.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 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 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
- Scrapeless: grade C, 54.3/100, rank #326 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapeless.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapeless.json

## 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

| Category | Weight | Apify MCP Server | Scrapeless | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 75 | Scrapeless +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 66 | Apify MCP Server +26 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 50 | Apify MCP Server +42 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 35 | Apify MCP Server +27 |
| 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 | 81 | Apify MCP Server +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 56 | Apify MCP Server +32 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **78.6 · A** | **54.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Apify MCP Server | Scrapeless |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Apify | Scrapeless (NST Labs Tech) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.apify.com` | `https://api.scrapeless.com` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | yes, from $1/call | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 35 | 25 |
| 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.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-16 |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk | 169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.4/5 (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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