# Crawl4AI vs Scrapingdog (slim)

> Crawl4AI scores 43.9 (E) to Scrapingdog's 39.3 (E) for scraping. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crawl4ai-vs-scrapingdog.md (~5,400 tokens) · this version ~2,780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crawl4ai-vs-scrapingdog.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crawl4ai-vs-scrapingdog
- 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
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Crawl4AI scores 43.9 (E) on agent readiness against Scrapingdog's 39.3 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Scrapingdog leads on reliability. Both do scraping.

- Crawl4AI: E 43.9, rank #1224 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/crawl4ai.min.md
- Scrapingdog: E 39.3, rank #1325 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapingdog.min.md
- Crawl4AI, good 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 Schema & documentation, 55 against 43; Agent ergonomics, 67 against 44; Security & auth, 46 against 5; Payments & pricing, 45 against 40; Maintenance & community, 83 against 45; Transparency & trust, 70 against 56. Also Open source.
- Scrapingdog, good for A budget agent that wants parsed Google, Amazon or LinkedIn results and can keep the key out of logs. Ahead on Reliability, 62 against 35. Also Runs on your own machine.

| Category | Crawl4AI | Scrapingdog |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 35 | 62 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 55 | 43 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 44 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 46 | 5 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 45 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 83 | 45 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 70 | 56 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Crawl4AI | Scrapingdog |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | CONTEXT4AI PTE LTD | Scrapingdog (OpenData Labs) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.crawl4ai.com/mcp` | `https://api.scrapingdog.com/scrape` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Price for scraping | $0.50 per 1,000 pages | not published |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | none |
| Tools exposed | 16 | 35 |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.Darshan972/scrapingdog-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-14 | 2026-07-31 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-15 | 2026-01-13 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-15 | 2025-07-17 |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 87k stars, 368k PyPI/wk | 0 stars, 41 npm/wk, 12 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, Crawl4AI +41: Crawl4AI 46 (Bearer keys, shown once and regenerable, with 3 to 30 keys per plan. claude.ai and ChatGPT sign in through a flow that advertises one scope, `mcp`, and each app shows as a revocable key. No per-key scopes, and the docs don't offer the key in a URL (22 of 30). A key can call billing routes, and the MCP `topup` and `recharge` tools charge the saved card, though llms.txt tells agents to ask first and accounts can set a spend cap. No read-only key (6 of 20). Scraped pages are untrusted text and no prompt-injection guidance was found in llms.txt or the API docs (0). Per-call cost, balance and fetch path in response headers and fields, no access log documented (6 of 15). The security page (4 October 2026) gives a disclosure process with fix targets and says SOC 2 is in progress, and the library publishes GitHub advisories with reporter credits. security.txt redirects to a 404, and no bounty found (12 of 20). 22 + 6 + 0 + 6 + 12 = 46.); Scrapingdog 5 (One account key with no scopes, and we found no rotation or revocation docs (10). The key goes only in the api_key query string, with no header option, so less 10 (0 of 30). No read-only mode or least-privilege key. The API only reads third-party pages, so there are no destructive account actions (5 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance in the docs or the MCP README (0 of 15). No request log or per-call audit found (0 of 15). No security.txt per the 30 September check, and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0 of 20).)
- Maintenance & community, Crawl4AI +38: 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.); Scrapingdog 45 (The SDKs and MCP server were first published on 31 July and 1 August 2026, 61 days ago. No API changelog or later release found (20). Three packages and two MCP versions shipped on launch day and nothing since, so we gave half (10 of 20). We couldn't read GitHub issues. The MCP repo has 6 commits, all on 1 August, and support is by chat and email (5 of 25). The MCP is in the official registry under the personal namespace io.github.Darshan972, though the vendor's SDK page links it as its own. SDKs are current (8 of 15). No CI, tests or tags in the MCP repo (2 of 10).)
- Reliability, Scrapingdog +27: 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.); Scrapingdog 62 (UptimeRobot status page linked from the footer per the 30 September check. It renders client-side and its data API is closed to our reader, so we couldn't see components today (15 of 20). No readable incident history (5). Concurrency per plan is published, 1 on Free up to 2,200 on the top plan (15). Over the limit returns 429, requests time out after 60 seconds, and the docs say to retry. Failures aren't billed. No Retry-After found (10 of 15). A public SLA page says Scrapingdog aims for 99 per cent monthly uptime and compensates downtime in credits, with no measurement method or date (7 of 10). Generally available (10).)
- Agent ergonomics, Crawl4AI +23: 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.); Scrapingdog 44 (35 MCP tools with no toolsets or subsets (5 of 25). markdown=true, ai_query and parsed JSON endpoints for Google, Amazon and LinkedIn keep responses smaller. No documented pagination or size limits on the raw scrape (12 of 20). 8 HTTP status codes with meanings, and the MCP passes the status and body back (12 of 20). Failed requests aren't billed, but no tool annotations or idempotency guidance (5 of 20). Only url is required, but rendering defaults on at 5 credits and the MCP describes it as off. Node and Python SDKs (10 of 15).)
- Transparency & trust, Crawl4AI +14: 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.); Scrapingdog 56 (Closed service with terms revised 13 January 2026, naming OpenData Labs Private Limited under the laws of Rajasthan, India, with no postal address. The MCP is MIT (15 of 30). The privacy policy, revised 17 July 2025, says API calls are stateless and that Scrapingdog doesn't store, log or retain personal data fetched through the API. A DPA is published. No retention periods for account data (22 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0). No processors or data locations named (0 of 20).)
- Schema & documentation, Crawl4AI +12: 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.); Scrapingdog 43 (No OpenAPI spec found. The MCP builds typed zod inputs for 35 tools from a declarative registry, and ai_extract_rules is a JSON string (12 of 25). llms.txt per the 30 September check (10). MCP descriptions say what each endpoint does but not when to avoid it, and the web_scrape tool tells the model the API default for dynamic is false while the docs say rendering is on by default (10 of 20). Booleans, numbers and strings with few enums, plus the JSON-string field (9 of 15). Code examples on each docs page and 8 documented status codes (12 of 15). No changelog and no versioned API paths found (0).)