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Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run

Apify MCP Server vs ScrapingBee

Apify MCP Server scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against ScrapingBee's 59.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingBee leads on reliability. Both do scraping. Apify MCP Server accepts x402. ScrapingBee doesn't.

Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents · All 167 scrapers comparisons

Apify MCP ServerApify · MCP server BB76.5/100#28 of 950 ScrapingBeeScrapingBee (Oxylabs group) · HTTP API C59.2/100#557 of 950

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

  • Schema & documentation, 92 against 60
  • Agent ergonomics, 92 against 68
  • Security & auth, 62 against 37
  • Payments & pricing, 95 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 95 against 85
  • Transparency & trust, 86 against 63

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

ScrapingBee C

Good for Agents that mix general scraping with ready-made Google, Amazon and YouTube endpoints and want spend capped per call.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 65

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 4.0 against 3.4 out of 5
  • No incidents deducted, where Apify MCP Server loses 5 points for them

Watch for

remote-mcp.txt says the hosted MCP only takes the key as ?api_key= in its URL

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runApify MCP ServerScrapingBeeEdge
Reliability16%206570ScrapingBee +5
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29260Apify MCP Server +32
Agent ergonomics13%16.29268Apify MCP Server +24
Security & auth14%17.56237Apify MCP Server +25
Payments & pricing10%12.59540Apify MCP Server +55
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.89585Apify MCP Server +10
Transparency & trust7%8.88663Apify MCP Server +23
Negative events≤15-50
Total76.5 · BB59.2 · C

Facts side by side

FactApify MCP ServerScrapingBee
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorApifyScrapingBee (Oxylabs group)
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.apify.comhttps://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPaid
x402yes, from $1/callno
LicenceMITnone
Tools exposed3518
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
MCP registrycom.apify/apify-mcp-servernot listed
Last release2026-09-302026-09-11
Terms last updated2026-07-092024-07-15
Privacy policy last updated2026-07-092024-07-15
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk132 stars, 49k npm/wk, 72k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.4/5 (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.

ScrapingBee

Dedicated Google, Amazon, Walmart, YouTube, ChatGPT and Gemini endpoints next to the general HTML API. remote-mcp.txt says the hosted MCP only takes the key as ?api_key= in its URL.

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

ScrapingBee

  1. Send render_js=false for static pages and files. It cuts the cost from 5 credits to 1
  2. Use mode=auto with max_cost=25 to stop it escalating to 75-credit stealth requests
  3. Keep the MCP URL with ?api_key= out of logs and shared configs
  4. Back off exponentially on 429 from the MCP, since its concurrency is shared across customers
  5. Expect 404 and 410 from the target to be billed. Other failures aren't

Questions

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

Apify MCP Server scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against ScrapingBee's 59.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingBee leads on reliability.

Do Apify MCP Server and ScrapingBee need an API key?

Apify MCP Server takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. ScrapingBee 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 ScrapingBee without installing anything?

Yes. Apify MCP Server has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.apify.com and ScrapingBee at https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/.

Are Apify MCP Server and ScrapingBee open source?

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

Other comparisons with Apify MCP Server or ScrapingBee

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