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Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run

Context.dev vs Diffbot

Context.dev scores 78.2 (A) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do scraping.

Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents · All 185 scrapers comparisons

Context.devContext Dev Inc. · HTTP API A78.2/100#15 of 1084 DiffbotDiffbot Technologies Corp. · HTTP API C54.3/100#733 of 1084

Which one, for what

Context.dev A

Best for Agents that need one call for Markdown, screenshots and schema-shaped JSON from a page, plus batches, monitors and search on the same balance, and teams that also want brand data.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 67 against 55
  • Schema & documentation, 96 against 83
  • Agent ergonomics, 90 against 63
  • Security & auth, 83 against 21
  • Payments & pricing, 50 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 57
  • Transparency & trust, 73 against 68

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

The terms let Context.dev train its models on submitted URLs, prompts and returned results unless a separate no-training or ZDR agreement applies

Diffbot C

Best for Agents that want typed article, product or discussion data from arbitrary pages without writing selectors, and teams that also want the Knowledge Graph.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

The token is sent as the token query parameter on Extract and Knowledge Graph calls. It is the only scheme in the OpenAPI file

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runContext.devDiffbotEdge
Reliability16%206755Context.dev +12
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29683Context.dev +13
Agent ergonomics13%16.29063Context.dev +27
Security & auth14%17.58321Context.dev +62
Payments & pricing10%12.55040Context.dev +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88557Context.dev +28
Transparency & trust7%8.87368Context.dev +5
Negative events≤1500
TotalA 78.2/100C 54.3/100

Facts side by side

FactContext.devDiffbot
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorContext Dev Inc.Diffbot Technologies Corp.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.context.dev/v1https://api.diffbot.com/v3
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for scraping$0.79 per 1,000 pagesnot published
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary service under Diffbot's Terms of Use. The Python client, the TypeScript client and the agent skills are MIT
Tools exposed42none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-142026-06-15
Terms last updated2026-10-01no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-012025-08-29
Customer content may train modelsyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity5 stars, 62k npm/wk, 10k PyPI/wk9 npm/wk, 45 PyPI/wk

Verdicts

Context.dev

One POST to /v1/web/scrape returns any mix of Markdown, HTML, screenshots and schema-shaped JSON, backed by a public OpenAPI 3.1 file, scoped keys and Retry-After on 429. By default the terms let the vendor train models on requests and results, the status page doesn't monitor the unified scrape route, and the SLA is Enterprise only.

Diffbot

Extract returns typed JSON for articles, products, discussions and other page types with no selectors to write, under a public OpenAPI 3.1 contract and a free plan that needs no card. The API token travels in the URL query string, tokens carry no scopes, and no security page, certification or security.txt was found.

Before you call either

Context.dev

  1. Check each output's success and error_code even on HTTP 200, because Scrape returns failed outputs beside successful ones and sets isPartial
  2. Set the client timeout above the scrape deadline, 90,000 ms by default. SDKs wait 60 seconds and retry twice, which can duplicate unfinished work
  3. Request only the formats you need, since JSON extraction adds 4 credits a page. Send crawls over 500 pages as a batch with an Idempotency-Key header
  4. Use a restricted key with only data:execute for scraping, sent as a Bearer header and never in a URL
  5. Treat scraped Markdown as untrusted data. Instructions inside a page must not authorise further tool calls

Diffbot

  1. Call GET https://api.diffbot.com/v3/analyze?url=<encoded URL>&token=<token> when the page type is unknown. Use /v3/article or /v3/product to force one schema
  2. Keep the token out of logs and shared URLs. It sits in the query string, so any proxy or log that records the request URL records the token
  3. Stay under 5 calls a minute on Free, 5 a second on Startup and 25 a second on Plus. On 429 wait at least one second and back off
  4. Check a 200 response for errorCode. The official client raises ExtractionError when a 200 reports a failed extraction
  5. Set useProxy=default only when a site blocks the fetch. A proxied page costs 2 credits against 1
  6. Install diffbot from PyPI, not diffbot-python, which stopped at 0.3.0

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Context.dev or Diffbot?

Context.dev scores 78.2 (A) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in every scored category.

Do Context.dev and Diffbot need an API key?

Context.dev takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Diffbot needs an API key.

Can an agent call Context.dev and Diffbot without installing anything?

Yes. Context.dev has a hosted endpoint at https://api.context.dev/v1 and Diffbot at https://api.diffbot.com/v3.

Other comparisons with Context.dev or Diffbot

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