# Apify MCP Server vs Spider

> Apify MCP Server has a score of 78.6 (A) against Spider's 74.3 (BB). Both do crawling. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 22 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-spider-cloud
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-spider-cloud.md (~1,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-spider-cloud.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-spider-cloud.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 Spider's 74.3 (BB). Both do crawling. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 22 points.

- 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
- Spider: grade BB, 74.3/100, rank #49 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spider-cloud.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/spider-cloud.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Apify MCP Server for schema & documentation (+5), agent ergonomics (+22), security & auth (+20), maintenance & community (+10), transparency & trust (+19).

Pick Spider for reliability (+15).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Apify MCP Server | Spider | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 80 | Spider +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 87 | Apify MCP Server +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 70 | Apify MCP Server +22 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 42 | Apify MCP Server +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 95 | 96 | Spider +1 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 95 | 85 | Apify MCP Server +10 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 69 | Apify MCP Server +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **78.6 · A** | **74.3 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Apify MCP Server | Spider |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Apify | Spider (BAGELMEN LLC) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.apify.com` | `https://api.spider.cloud` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | yes, from $1/call | yes, from $0.0005/call |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 35 | 22 |
| 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` | `cloud.spider/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-07-19 |
| Popularity | 8.6k stars, 15k npm/wk | 2.7k stars, 2.7k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.4/5 (8) | 3.3/5 (8) |

## 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.

**Spider.** Keyless /scrape and working x402 v2 on every core route, so an agent needs no account. Operated by BAGELMEN LLC with no address, retention periods or DPA in the privacy policy.

## 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

### Spider

1. Every content route returns a JSON array, even /scrape. The status field is the page's, not the API call's
2. Leave request on smart and set return_format to markdown for LLM input
3. Set limit on /crawl. Unset, it caps only at your credit balance
4. Use /scrape with `stealth: true` instead of /unblocker, which is deprecated
5. Honour Retry-After on 429. Keyless use allows 4 requests a minute

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