# BrowserAct vs ScraperAPI (slim)

> ScraperAPI scores 49.7 (D) to BrowserAct's 44.4 (E) for scraping. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browseract-vs-scraperapi.md (~5,150 tokens) · this version ~2,530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browseract-vs-scraperapi.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browseract-vs-scraperapi
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
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ScraperAPI scores 49.7 (D) on agent readiness against BrowserAct's 44.4 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. BrowserAct leads on schema & documentation, security & auth and maintenance & community. Both do scraping.

- BrowserAct: E 44.4, rank #1204 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/browseract.min.md
- ScraperAPI: D 49.7, rank #1077 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scraperapi.min.md
- BrowserAct, good for Teams that want no-code, prompt-built scrapers an agent can rerun on a schedule. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 76 against 67; Security & auth, 41 against 29; Maintenance & community, 61 against 41.
- ScraperAPI, good for Agents that want a single GET to fetch pages through proxies, with parsed JSON for Amazon, Google, Walmart, eBay and Redfin and a batch API of up to 50,000 URLs. Ahead on Reliability, 42 against 23; Agent ergonomics, 74 against 49; Payments & pricing, 40 against 25; Transparency & trust, 54 against 44. Also Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card.

| Category | BrowserAct | ScraperAPI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 23 | 42 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 76 | 67 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 49 | 74 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 41 | 29 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 25 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 61 | 41 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 44 | 54 |

| Fact (where they differ) | BrowserAct | ScraperAPI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Hongkong Ziniao Technology Co., Limited | ScraperAPI (saas.group) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.browseract.com/mcp/` | `https://api.scraperapi.com` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Tools exposed | none | 28 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-05 | 2026-08-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-05-15 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-05-15 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 5 stars |

Why the edge:
- Agent ergonomics, ScraperAPI +25: BrowserAct 49 (Graded on the API, since the MCP tool list isn't published. Task results come back whole, with no field selection found (10). Lists of bots, templates and tasks are paginated (15). Errors carry numeric codes with documented meanings for a few cases (12). No idempotency key on task creation; webhooks and a status endpoint avoid polling loops (5). No official SDK in two languages; the CLI is Python (7). 10 + 15 + 12 + 5 + 7 = 49.); ScraperAPI 74 (28 MCP tools with no toolsets or dynamic loading (15 of 25). `output_format` returns Markdown or text, `autoparse` returns JSON on supported domains, structured endpoints page their results, and `max_cost`, `crawl_budget` and `max_depth` cap a job (15 of 20). Errors are HTTP status codes with plain-text messages. No machine-readable error codes (13 of 20). All 28 MCP tools carry readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint and openWorldHint, failed requests are not charged, and async jobs return a status URL to poll (16 of 20). Only `api_key` and `url` are required, rendering is off by default, and SDKs are documented for Python, Node.js, PHP, Ruby and Java (15). 15 + 15 + 13 + 16 + 15 = 74.)
- Maintenance & community, BrowserAct +20: BrowserAct 61 (browser-act-cli 1.6.2 on 5 November 2026, read from PyPI's release feed (30). Six CLI releases from 15 October to 5 November (20). A closed service with a support address, but no public changelog or issue tracker found (8). No official SDKs and no entry in the official MCP registry (0). The CLI package carries no licence or repository in its metadata (3). 30 + 20 + 8 + 0 + 3 = 61.); ScraperAPI 41 (The newest dated entry is the October 2026 release note on automatic Akamai unblocking, dated by month only. Counted from its month, October lies 4 to 34 days back, so it is inside 90 days but not shown within 30, as crustdata's October entries. The skills plugin's 1.1.0 of 7 August is an untagged version bump, and the MCP server's v1.1.1 is from 17 July 2026 (20). Since 6 August only the October note and the 7 August plugin bump are dated, fewer than three (0 of 20). The npm and PyPI pages of the SDKs and CLI couldn't be read on 4 November. Monthly release notes and support through the dashboard and email. We did not read the repository's issues (8 of 15). SDKs are documented for five languages, but we could not check their release dates, and the Node.js SDK repository's last commit is from 12 January 2024 (8 of 15). The MCP repository has unit tests and a lock file but no public CI workflow (5 of 10). 20 + 0 + 8 + 8 + 5 = 41.)
- Reliability, ScraperAPI +19: BrowserAct 23 (Hosted reading. No status page found (0) and no readable incident history (5). The docs say there are no rate limits, and give concurrency by plan (2 free, up to 20 for paid API users) and a 7-hour task cap (8). No 429 or retry guidance, and no idempotency keys on task creation (0). No SLA (0). No beta label on the API or MCP server (10). 0 + 5 + 8 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 23.); ScraperAPI 42 (No status page is linked from the home, pricing, support or docs pages we read on 9 October or 4 November (0). No readable incident history (5). Concurrency limits are published per plan, 5 threads on Free, 20 on Hobby, 50, 100, 200, 300 and 500 above it, and the local MCP server limits itself to 10 calls in 60 seconds (15). 429 is documented as a concurrency rejection with no charge, the API retries a target for up to 70 seconds before returning 500, failed requests aren't charged, and the docs tell clients to retry failed requests. That is safe-retry guidance with no idempotency keys on the async job writes and no Retry-After header (12 of 15). The pricing page lists a 99.9% uptime guarantee on every plan, but no SLA document or credit terms were found and the Terms of Use are closed to us (0 of 10). The API, async service and crawler are generally available (10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 42.)
- Payments & pricing, ScraperAPI +15: BrowserAct 25 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices and credit costs per bot build, run and workflow step are public, but there is no direct per-call price (15). A free plan with 200 credits; whether it needs a card isn't stated (10). A person signs up and creates the key in the dashboard (0). 0 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 25.); ScraperAPI 40 (No x402, MPP or L402 found in the docs index or pricing page (0). Plan prices and credit costs per request type are public without a login (20). Free plan of 1,000 credits a month and a 7-day trial of 5,000 credits, no card (20). A person signs up in a browser to get a key (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.)
- Security & auth, BrowserAct +12: BrowserAct 41 (One account-wide API key type, revocable and listed with last-used time, but without scopes or expiry (18). Confirmation Required mode holds purchases and asset creation or deletion for approval in the BrowserAct page (14). Scraped pages are untrusted, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (3). Keys show last use and runs keep logs (6). No security page, disclosure policy, certification or bug bounty found (0). 18 + 14 + 3 + 6 + 0 = 41.); ScraperAPI 29 (One API key per account, regenerated from the dashboard at most once every 24 hours. No scopes (20). The documented default puts the key in the URL query string, so less 10, although an `x-sapi-api_key` header and a Bearer header on the remote MCP server exist (10 of 30). No read-only or restricted keys. `max_cost`, a monthly pay-as-you-go spending cap and destructive hints on the two MCP delete tools limit damage (6 of 20). The API returns untrusted web content and no prompt-injection guidance was found in the docs, the MCP README or the skills (2 of 15). The dashboard has analytics with error logs, each response carries `sa-credit-cost`, and the privacy policy says activity logs are deleted after 7 days (9 of 15). `/.well-known/security.txt` returned 404 on 9 October and 4 November, and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found. The home page claims CCPA and GDPR compliance (2 of 20). 10 + 6 + 2 + 9 + 2 = 29.)
- Transparency & trust, ScraperAPI +10: BrowserAct 44 (Closed service with published terms naming the operating company and governing law (15). The privacy policy of 15 May 2025 states retention by category and that crawled data is kept per plan and deletable by the user (15). No deprecation policy or notices found (0). No sub-processors or data locations named (3). 15 + 15 + 0 + 3 = 33.); ScraperAPI 54 (Closed service. The MCP server and skills are MIT. Terms of Use exist at `/terms/`, but robots.txt disallows that path, so we could not confirm what they say (10 of 30). The privacy policy says activity logs are deleted after 7 days and account data within 60 days of a request, async results are kept up to 72 hours and DataPipeline results 30 days. The policy is undated, names Saas.group Inc. while a November 2025 release note says the service operates as ScraperAPI LLC, and no DPA was found (14 of 30). The terms and billing change was announced with effective dates of 4 November 2025 and 5 January 2026. No standing deprecation policy (8 of 20). No sub-processor list or hosting location found, only a general statement on transfers outside the EEA (3 of 20). 10 + 14 + 8 + 3 = 35.)