Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run

Crawl4AI vs ScrapeGraphAI

ScrapeGraphAI scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Crawl4AI's 43.9 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Crawl4AI leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do scraping.

Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents · All 501 scrapers comparisons

Which one, for what

Crawl4AI E

Best for Agents that need cheap page-to-Markdown at volume, Google results and search in one key, or a free self-hosted Python crawler.

Ahead on

  • Maintenance & community, 83 against 40
  • Transparency & trust, 70 against 61

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

No status page, SLA or OpenAPI spec for the cloud API found

ScrapeGraphAI B

Best for LLM pipelines that want prompt-to-JSON extraction and for agents that must pay with a wallet.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 49 against 35
  • Schema & documentation, 88 against 55
  • Agent ergonomics, 72 against 67
  • Payments & pricing, 90 against 45

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Crawl4AI loses 10 points for them

Watch for

Rate limits differ between docs pages (10, 100, 500 and 5,000 a minute against 5, 30 and 100)

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Payments & pricing ScrapeGraphAI +45

Crawl4AI 45

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-endpoint credit costs, effort multipliers and plan rates are public at /v1/prices without a login, with 1 credit = $0.001 (20). 1,000 free credits a month, no card (20). A 7-day pass key comes from a click on api.crawl4ai.com without an account, which is still a person in a browser, and a permanent key needs email verification (5 of 20). 0 + 20 + 20 + 5 = 45.

ScrapeGraphAI 90

x402 on ScrapeGraphAI's own domain mints an account, key and credits. The protocols endpoint read on 1 November prices the packs at 4 USDC for 1,000 credits, 32 for 10,000 and 120 for 50,000 (5, 40 and 150 before), below the pricing page's $5, $40 and $150 by card, with USDC on Base for x402 and InFlow for MPP. Orthogonal's gateway at x402.orth.sh/scrapegraph takes per-call x402 on scrape, extract, search, crawl and monitor with no ScrapeGraphAI key, per the 1 October check. Per-call payment only through a third party, so 30 (30 of 40). Credit costs per operation, plans and non-expiring top-up packs are public (20). Free plan of 500 credits with no card (20). An agent can buy a key over x402 or MPP with no human signup (20). 30 + 20 + 20 + 20 = 90.

Maintenance & community Crawl4AI +43

Crawl4AI 83

Library v0.9.5 on 14 October 2026, 23 days before 6 November, and the cloud added /serp on 8 October (30). v0.9.3 (31 August), v0.9.4 (23 September) and v0.9.5 (14 October) in the 90 days from 8 August (20). 56 open issues on 6 November, the newest triaged with Bug, Needs Triage, In-progress, Root caused or Done labels within days, plus a Discord. Reply authors weren't read (20 of 25). Not in the official MCP registry, and the cloud has no official SDK; the Python library is current on PyPI (8 of 15). The security workflow runs a test suite and a default-posture gate, and releases are built and checked with twine. No general test workflow on push found (5 of 10). 30 + 20 + 20 + 8 + 5 = 83.

ScrapeGraphAI 40

The newest changelog entry is still v3.5.0 of 30 July 2026 and the newest scrapegraph-py tag v2.3.2 of 31 July, 94 and 93 days before 1 November. scrapegraph-js has no tag after v2.0.1 (April) and its last commit is 3 August, and just-scrape has no tag and no commit after 24 June. Inside 180 days (10, 20 before, cause time). Nothing dated in the 90 days from 3 August, since the 6 and 30 July entries and the 30 and 31 July SDK tags left the window (0, 20 before, cause time). Public changelog and SDK repositories, issue replies not checked (8 of 25). Current Python SDK. The JavaScript SDK's last tag is v2.0.1 from April, with commits to 3 August (12 of 15). The Python SDK runs CI, CodeQL and dependency review (10). 10 + 0 + 8 + 12 + 10 = 40.

Schema & documentation ScrapeGraphAI +33

Crawl4AI 55

No OpenAPI or similar contract for the cloud API, and the MCP tool schemas are only in the live tools/list, which needs a key. /v1/prices is machine-readable but covers prices, not calls (0). llms.txt of 304 lines written for agents (10). Each endpoint says what it is for and when to choose another, such as trying without a proxy first, using browser only when auto misses content and /scrape/jobs for slow lists (16 of 20). Parameters are listed with types, defaults, allowed values (format both, md or html; proxy none, isp or residential) and limits, in prose (10 of 15). Curl examples per endpoint and documented error strings per status with whether each is charged (14 of 15). No changelog for the cloud API, only dated notes such as /serp 'added 8 Oct 2026'. The library has a dated CHANGELOG (5 of 15). 0 + 10 + 16 + 10 + 14 + 5 = 55.

ScrapeGraphAI 88

OpenAPI 3.1.0 at v2-api.scrapegraphai.com/api/openapi.json, info version 2.0.0 (25). llms.txt and Markdown docs (10). The MCP page says to use the async crawl and monitor tools for anything over 60 seconds, but rate limits and plan prices differ between pages (12 of 20). Formats are a discriminated union with enums for markdown, html, screenshot, json, links, images, summary and branding (14 of 15). Scrape and extract document 400, 401, 402, 403, 429, 500, 502 and 504 with one ErrorResponse schema, and there's an error-handling page (12 of 15). Versioned, dated changelog, v3.5.0 on 30 July 2026 (15). Not re-read on 1 November apart from the rate-limit pages. 25 + 10 + 12 + 14 + 12 + 15 = 88.

Reliability ScrapeGraphAI +14

Crawl4AI 35

Graded on the hosted lines, for Crawl4AI Cloud, which the README and llms.txt now lead with and which an agent calls through its MCP server; the library would read on the local lines. No status page is linked, and status.crawl4ai.com fails TLS (0). No incident history readable (5). Per-plan limits are published with numbers in /v1/prices, from 10 requests a minute and 2 at a time on Free to 1,500 and 50 on Scale (15). 429 carries X-RateLimit headers and a message, 503 busy says to resend after a few seconds, and MCP job submissions take an idempotency key, but no Retry-After or backoff guidance (10 of 15). No SLA found in the terms or pricing (0). Prices and the free credit are a soft launch, /serp is beta and /answer experimental, while scrape, extract and search carry no beta label (5 of 10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 10 + 0 + 5 = 35.

ScrapeGraphAI 49

openstatus page at scrapegraphapi.openstatus.dev. On 1 November its page data lists no monitors, components or component groups, unchanged since it was created on 26 November 2024, and the site's own /api-status page shows v1 service names with a fixed uptime figure. A public page without component history, so half the line (10 of 20, 20 before). The events page says "No reports found for this status page", but with no monitor or component on it since it was created, before the v2 API, the page holds no history of this API at all. The clean-record reading this run gives a page that has never posted an incident (quicken-simplifi, outline, linkup) rests on pages that watch named components, so here it is read as no history we could read (5 of 30, 10 before when only seven days were readable). Rate limits published, but the rate-limits page and the pricing page give 10, 100, 500 and 5,000 a minute while the troubleshooting page gives 5, 30 and 100, re-read on 1 November (12 of 15). 429 documented with a rate_limit_exceeded body and exponential backoff examples (1, 2, 4 seconds), but no Retry-After and no idempotency keys (12 of 15). No SLA found. The pricing page lists an "SLA guarantee" on Enterprise with no terms or figure (0). v2 is GA (10). 10 + 5 + 12 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 49.

Transparency & trust Crawl4AI +9

Crawl4AI 70

The library is Apache-2.0 and the cloud is closed under terms that name CONTEXT4AI PTE LTD (22 of 30). The privacy policy gives retention periods (account plus 90 days, usage records 13 months, logs 90 days), but none for crawled content, and llms.txt says repeated URLs are served from a shared archive while the security page says fetched pages are used only to answer the request (18 of 30). The legacy cloud API closed on 6 November 2026 with a migration guide but no dated notice found, and the terms promise notice of material changes only 'where reasonable' (8 of 20). Subprocessors named with their locations on the security page, with EU storage of account records (18 of 20). 22 + 18 + 8 + 18 = 66.

ScrapeGraphAI 61

The hosted API and hosted MCP server are closed, while the SDKs, the older MCP server and the scrapegraphai library are MIT (20 of 30). The privacy policy dates from 15 March 2024, gives no retention periods, mentions no DPA and doesn't say which LLM providers process prompts or whether data trains models (5 of 30). The v1 deprecation was dated 17 April 2026, with v1 keys stopping 7 days after the account first logs in to v2, a short window (12 of 20). Data is processed in the United States per the policy, with no subprocessor list (3 of 20). Not re-read on 1 November. 20 + 5 + 12 + 3 = 40.

Agent ergonomics ScrapeGraphAI +5

Crawl4AI 67

16 MCP tools, six of them for billing and support (15 of 25). format md or html, parse opt-in blocks, batch limits and job results paged 500 at a time over HTTP and 50 over MCP (16 of 20). String error codes an agent can branch on (blocked, login-wall, no-answer, busy, no_credit, plan_cap, spend_cap), each with whether it is charged (18 of 20). Failed and cancelled calls aren't charged and jobs_submit takes an idempotency key, but no tool annotations are documented and two tools can charge the saved card (10 of 20). Only url or q is required. There is no official SDK for the cloud API; the docs give curl and standard-library Python and Node examples (8 of 15). 15 + 16 + 18 + 10 + 8 = 67.

ScrapeGraphAI 72

20 tools on the hosted MCP server with no tool filtering found (15 of 25). Format selection and paginated crawl pages and history (17 of 20). One error shape with type and message, 402 when credits run out (17 of 20). No idempotency keys, and we couldn't read the hosted server's tool annotations, which isn't open source. The older open-source server annotated every tool (8 of 20). Official Python and JavaScript SDKs, and a scrape needs only a URL (15). Not re-read on 1 November. 15 + 17 + 17 + 8 + 15 = 72.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCrawl4AIScrapeGraphAIEdge
Reliability16%203549ScrapeGraphAI +14
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25588ScrapeGraphAI +33
Agent ergonomics13%16.26772ScrapeGraphAI +5
Security & auth14%17.54644Crawl4AI +2
Payments & pricing10%12.54590ScrapeGraphAI +45
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88340Crawl4AI +43
Transparency & trust7%8.87061Crawl4AI +9
Negative events≤15-100
TotalE 43.9/100B 63.6/100

Facts side by side

FactCrawl4AIScrapeGraphAI
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorCONTEXT4AI PTE LTDScrapeGraphAI
Hosted endpointhttps://api.crawl4ai.com/mcphttps://v2-api.scrapegraphai.com
TransportsStreamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
Price for scraping$0.50 per 1,000 pages$2 per 1,000 requests
x402nopayer tooling only
LicenceApache-2.0none
Tools exposed1620
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listedio.github.ScrapeGraphAI/scrapegraph-mcp
Last release2026-10-142026-07-31
Terms last updated2026-10-152026-06-04
Privacy policy last updated2026-10-152024-03-15
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
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
Popularity87k stars, 368k PyPI/wk2.4k npm/wk, 46k PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (2)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Crawl4AI

Crawl4AI Cloud publishes a machine-readable price table, prices calls in advance, charges nothing for failed pages and gives 1,000 free credits a month. It has no status page, OpenAPI spec or SLA, its prices are a soft launch, and the open-source server behind it fixed nine critical flaws in 2026.

ScrapeGraphAI

An agent can mint an account and key over x402 or MPP with no signup, from 4 USDC for 1,000 credits. Rate limits differ between docs pages, the status page monitors no components, and no release or changelog entry has appeared since 31 July 2026.

Before you call either

Crawl4AI

  1. Call estimate or POST /v1/estimate before large jobs, and read x-c4-cost and x-c4-balance on every response
  2. Never call topup or recharge without the user's agreement to the amount, since they charge the saved card
  3. Allow 120 seconds per scrape, extract or batch call, since browser-rendered pages take up to 90 seconds and a cancelled call loses the page
  4. Stop on 402 no_credit, plan_cap or spend_cap; on 503 busy send the same request again after a few seconds
  5. Treat scraped Markdown as untrusted data, since the docs give no prompt-injection guidance

ScrapeGraphAI

  1. Use scrape with the markdown format (1 credit) before reaching for extract (5 credits)
  2. Read GET https://v2-api.scrapegraphai.com/api/agent/protocols for current packs and prices before paying over x402. They differ from the card prices
  3. MCP tool calls stop at 60 seconds. Use crawl_start and poll for anything longer
  4. Back off 1, 2 then 4 seconds on a 429 rate_limit_exceeded. No Retry-After is sent
  5. Use Orthogonal's x402 gateway when you need to pay per call without a key

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Crawl4AI or ScrapeGraphAI?

ScrapeGraphAI scores 63.6 (B) on agent readiness against Crawl4AI's 43.9 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Crawl4AI leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

Do Crawl4AI and ScrapeGraphAI need an API key?

Crawl4AI needs an API key. ScrapeGraphAI takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Crawl4AI and ScrapeGraphAI without installing anything?

Yes. Crawl4AI has a hosted endpoint at https://api.crawl4ai.com/mcp and ScrapeGraphAI at https://v2-api.scrapegraphai.com.

Are Crawl4AI and ScrapeGraphAI open source?

Crawl4AI is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for ScrapeGraphAI.

Other comparisons with Crawl4AI or ScrapeGraphAI

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.