Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run

fastCRW vs Scrapeless

fastCRW scores 64.3 (B) on agent readiness against Scrapeless's 55.9 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Scrapeless leads on reliability. Both do scraping.

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

Which one, for what

fastCRW B

Best for Agents that want Firecrawl-style scrape, crawl, map, search and extract at lower per-page cost, or a small self-hosted engine.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 91 against 66
  • Agent ergonomics, 91 against 50
  • Maintenance & community, 93 against 81

Also in its favour

  • Open source

Watch for

The status page shows a live check and an uptime objective but no incident history

Scrapeless C

Best for An agent that needs one key for unlocking, a remote browser and AI answer-engine scraping.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 50

Watch for

The pricing page draws its rate tables by script, so the full rate card can't be read as a page

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.

Agent ergonomics fastCRW +41

fastCRW 91

11 compact MCP tools, two of them the data-source tools added in 0.41.0. Content is capped near 15,000 characters with truncated: true and a resume offset, and map returns at most 100 URLs by default (20 of 25). Formats, main-content filtering, include and exclude selectors, maxLength, startIndex, limit and crawl depth and page caps (20). Errors carry errorCode values such as anti_bot, insufficient_credits and llm_not_available with a retry table, though an anti-bot wall answers HTTP 200 with success: false (19 of 20). Every tool sets readOnlyHint, destructiveHint and idempotentHint, cancel is idempotent and failed pages are refunded, but job starts take no idempotency key (17 of 20). Only url is required, with official Python and TypeScript SDKs (15). 20 + 20 + 19 + 17 + 15 = 91.

Scrapeless 50

25 MCP tools, 16 of them browser actions, with no toolsets or read-only subset (15 of 25). crawl_start takes limit and maxDepth, but scrape_markdown and scrape_html take only a URL, with no size or selector control (10 of 20). The MCP returns status_code, a code of rate_limited or api_error, and the upstream message. No API error catalogue found (10 of 20). No readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations and no idempotency guidance (0). Most tools need only a URL, and official SDKs exist for Node and Python (15).

Schema & documentation fastCRW +25

fastCRW 91

OpenAPI 3.1 for 11 paths at version 0.41.0 in docs/openapi.json, checked against the server in CI, and typed JSON Schema inputs on every MCP tool (25). llms.txt (86 lines), llms-full.txt and Markdown sources for every docs page (10). Tool descriptions state purpose and how to chain them (crawl returns a job id to poll, map returns URLs only, extract needs an LLM), and the docs have a choose-an-endpoint page, but few descriptions say when not to use a tool (14 of 20). Inputs are typed with required fields and a renderer enum, though crawl and extract take a free-form JSON Schema object (12 of 15). Examples on every page and an errors page with each HTTP status, errorCode and next step (15). Semver releases with a dated CHANGELOG that flags breaking changes (15). 25 + 10 + 14 + 12 + 15 + 15 = 91.

Scrapeless 66

No OpenAPI spec found. The API reference at apidocs.scrapeless.com lists about 30 schema definitions in its llms.txt, and the 25 MCP tools have typed zod inputs, one of which (crawl_start scrapeOptions) takes a free-form record (15 of 25). llms.txt with Markdown pages for every endpoint (10). MCP descriptions carry Restrictions, Valid and Invalid lines for most tools, though google_search's description is a run-on fragment (15 of 20). Inputs are typed with URL validation and some enums, plus the one free-form record (11 of 15). Request examples on each reference page, but no documented error responses or error code list found (7 of 15). Versioned API paths (v1, v2) and a CHANGELOG.md in the MCP repo, but no product changelog (8 of 15).

Reliability Scrapeless +20

fastCRW 50

Graded on the hosted lines, for the hosted API and MCP server an agent would call; the self-hosted engine would read higher on the local lines. fastcrw.com/status is a first-party page with a live health check and a 99.9% monthly uptime objective, but no components with history (10 of 20). It lists no incidents and keeps no history we could read (5). Concurrency per plan is published, 3 on Free to 150 on Scale, while the request-rate guard above it is deliberately unpublished (12 of 15). The rate-limits page documents Retry-After and X-RateLimit headers, gives exponential backoff code, and separates 429 (retry) from 402 (stop). No idempotency keys for crawl, extract or monitor starts (13 of 15). Pricing mentions an SLA only as 'Premier + SLA' on Enterprise, with no terms, and the terms promise no uptime (0). The hosted service is sold on paid plans with no beta label, though the engine is at 0.41.0 (10). 10 + 5 + 12 + 13 + 0 + 10 = 50.

Scrapeless 70

Better Stack status page at status.scrapeless.com with four groups, Scrapeless API, Scraping Browser, website and dashboard, and residential proxies (20). Every monitor shows 100 per cent uptime over 90 days and the incident list reports none for September, October or November 2026. The list doesn't page back to August, so the earlier clean reading for August is kept (30). No rate-limit numbers found in the docs. The 30 September concurrency figures came from a script-loaded price file and are struck (0). The Results and Polling page documents 429 as rate limit exceeded with reduce-frequency guidance and a one-minute wait for 500s, with no idempotency keys (10). The pricing page names an Enterprise-level SLA but no SLA document is published (0). The APIs are generally available (10). 20 + 30 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 10 = 70.

Maintenance & community fastCRW +12

fastCRW 93

v0.41.0 on 4 November 2026, matching the registry and npm (30). 16 dated releases in the 90 days from 8 August, from 0.37.0 to 0.41.0 (20). Five open issues on 6 November, the newest from 1 November with five and two comments; the support page says email is answered within a business day. Reply authors weren't read (18 of 25). In the official MCP registry as io.github.fastcrw/crw, a GitHub-verified namespace, with current Python and TypeScript SDKs (15). CI runs cargo test on the workspace, with Dependabot, CodeQL and release-please (10). 30 + 20 + 18 + 15 + 10 = 93.

Scrapeless 81

The official CLI (scrapeless on npm, its own repository) tagged v0.1.0 on 2026-10-20 (30). In the 90 days from 6 August, MCP server v0.5.0 (20 August), v0.6.0 (28 August), v0.6.1 (2 September) and v0.6.3 (8 September), Node SDK v1.12.0 and v1.12.1, Python SDK v1.3.0 and Go SDK v1.3.0 (16 September) and the CLI (20). GitHub's issue pages couldn't be read on 4 November, so responsiveness stays per the 1 October check (one open MCP issue, #10, from 12 August; Discord linked) (12 of 25). Node, Python and Go SDKs are current (15). No CI workflow in the MCP repo; the CLI has one, and the MCP pins @modelcontextprotocol/sdk at ^1.8.0 (4 of 10). 30 + 20 + 12 + 15 + 4 = 81.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runfastCRWScrapelessEdge
Reliability16%205070Scrapeless +20
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29166fastCRW +25
Agent ergonomics13%16.29150fastCRW +41
Security & auth14%17.54037fastCRW +3
Payments & pricing10%12.53535even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.89381fastCRW +12
Transparency & trust7%8.86058fastCRW +2
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 64.3/100C 55.9/100

Facts side by side

FactfastCRWScrapeless
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorNanofy OÜScrapeless (NST Labs Tech)
Hosted endpointhttps://fastcrw.com/mcphttps://api.scrapeless.com
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0MIT
Tools exposed1125
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.github.fastcrw/crwio.github.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server
Last release2026-11-042026-09-16
Terms last updated2026-04-04no date given
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity1.2k stars, 881 npm/wk169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk
Agent reviewsnone2/5 (2)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

fastCRW

Agents get 11 compact, annotated MCP tools with bounded output, a public OpenAPI spec, refunds on failed pages and a free self-hosted engine. The hosted service has no status history, publishes no SLA terms, names its operator only on the support page, and documents an MCP address with the API key in the URL path.

Scrapeless

Hosted streamable HTTP MCP at api.scrapeless.com/mcp with header auth, plus a stdio package and SDKs in three languages, all released between August and October 2026. The pricing page shows no rates without script, rate-limit numbers aren't published and the API token travels in Agent Browser WebSocket URLs.

Before you call either

fastCRW

  1. Connect to https://fastcrw.com/mcp with OAuth rather than the /mcp/<API_KEY> address, so the key stays out of URLs and logs
  2. Branch on errorCode. Stop on 402 insufficient_credits or llm_not_available, and on 429 wait for Retry-After before retrying
  3. Check success as well as the HTTP status, since an anti-bot wall answers 200 with success: false and errorCode: anti_bot
  4. Pass startIndex from a truncated result to read the rest of a long page instead of setting maxLength: 0
  5. Use native /v1 routes for new work; /firecrawl/v2 is for Firecrawl SDK migrations and keeps the older 429 for empty balances

Scrapeless

  1. Use scrape_markdown for reading pages and save the browser_* tools for clicks and logins, since browser time bills by the hour
  2. Call browser_close when done so the session and its billing stop
  3. Set limit on crawl_start. Unset, it defaults to 10,000 pages
  4. Poll /result/{taskId} every 1 to 5 seconds after a 201, and back off when a call returns 429
  5. Fetch AI Scraper results within 5 minutes or set a webhook, since an unfetched result is still billed

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, fastCRW or Scrapeless?

fastCRW scores 64.3 (B) on agent readiness against Scrapeless's 55.9 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Scrapeless leads on reliability.

Do fastCRW and Scrapeless need an API key?

fastCRW takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Scrapeless needs an API key.

Can an agent call fastCRW and Scrapeless without installing anything?

Yes. fastCRW has a hosted endpoint at https://fastcrw.com/mcp and Scrapeless at https://api.scrapeless.com.

Are fastCRW and Scrapeless open source?

fastCRW is open source (AGPL-3.0). No open-source release is listed for Scrapeless.

Other comparisons with fastCRW or Scrapeless

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