# Apify MCP Server vs Scrapfly

> Apify MCP Server has a score of 78.6 (A) against Scrapfly's 69.8 (B). Both do crawling. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 55 points. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. Scrapfly doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-05

Apify MCP Server has a score of 78.6 (A) against Scrapfly's 69.8 (B). Both do crawling. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 55 points. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. Scrapfly 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
- Scrapfly: grade B, 69.8/100, rank #107 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapfly.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapfly.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Apify MCP Server for reliability (+15), agent ergonomics (+12), payments & pricing (+55), maintenance & community (+11), transparency & trust (+11).

Pick Scrapfly for security & auth (+8).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Apify MCP Server | Scrapfly | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 50 | Apify MCP Server +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 95 | Scrapfly +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 80 | Apify MCP Server +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 70 | Scrapfly +8 |
| 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 | 84 | Apify MCP Server +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 77 | Apify MCP Server +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **78.6 · A** | **69.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Apify MCP Server | Scrapfly |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Apify | Scrapfly (Joam Intelligence, LLC) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.apify.com` | `https://api.scrapfly.io/scrape` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | yes, from $1/call | no |
| Licence | MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 35 | 61 |
| 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.scrapfly.mcp/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-08 |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk | 14 stars, 21k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.4/5 (8) | 4/5 (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.

**Scrapfly.** The error catalogue documents HTTP status, retry behaviour and billing for over 100 codes. The MCP server loads 61 tools at once.

## 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

### Scrapfly

1. Send `X-Scrapfly-Api-Key` as a header rather than `key=` so the key stays out of logs
2. Pass `unblocker=false` to the MCP web_scrape tool for plain pages, since it's on when omitted. `asp` is the deprecated alias
3. Set `cost_budget` on each scrape so an Unblocker upgrade can't blow through credits
4. Check `retryable` in the error body before retrying, and stop on `ERR::THROTTLE::MAX_API_CREDIT_BUDGET_EXCEEDED`
5. Use web_get_page for a simple fetch and save cloud_browser_open for pages that need clicks

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