# Datalab vs Extend API + MCP (slim)

> Datalab and Extend score within a point of each other for document parsing, 65.6 and 65.5 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- 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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Datalab and Extend API + MCP score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 65.6 (B) and 65.5 (B). Extend API + MCP leads on reliability. Both do document parsing.

- Datalab: B 65.6, rank #413 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/datalab.min.md
- Extend API + MCP: B 65.5, rank #416 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/extend.min.md
- Datalab, good for Hosted PDF and Office conversion and schema extraction with citations, from the team behind Marker. Ahead on Agent ergonomics, 73 against 68; Security & auth, 56 against 45; Payments & pricing, 40 against 30. Also Free to start without a card.
- Extend API + MCP, good for Teams building production extraction with evaluation sets and versioned processors, and for agents that need to build or tune extractors as well as run them. Ahead on Reliability, 77 against 58.

| Category | Datalab | Extend API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 58 | 77 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 89 | 87 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 73 | 68 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 56 | 45 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 68 | 70 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Datalab | Extend API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Endless Labs, Inc. (Datalab) | Extend |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://www.datalab.to/api/v1` | `https://api.extend.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Price for document parsing | not published | $5 per 1,000 pages |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under Datalab's terms; the Marker and Surya code is open source and model weights are free under revenue and funding thresholds | none |
| Tools exposed | 0 | 86 |
| MCP registry | not listed | `ai.extend/extend` |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-22 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-30 | 2026-09-14 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-06-30 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 124k npm/wk, 59k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 4/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Extend API + MCP +19: Datalab 58 (Hosted lines. Status page at status.datalab.to (incident.io) with Website and Datalab API components; the history page is drawn by script, so components are confirmed and history isn't (15 of 20, 5 for history). Rate limits per plan with numbers, plus page and size limits (15). 429 is retryable with sample backoff, and 500 and 529 say to check a known request ID before resubmitting; webhooks deduplicate by request_id (13 of 15). Custom SLAs only for Enterprise (0). Generally available (10). 15+5+15+13+0+10 = 58.); Extend API + MCP 77 (Status page at status.extend.ai, now on incident.io, with a component per deployment (US1, US2, EU1) and incident history (20). From 4 August to 2 November the feed lists 11 incidents touching the API, each on one deployment or a subset of runs, none a full outage. The longest was 28 August, US1 parsing and extraction degraded from 17:05 and a partial outage from 17:12 to 18:20 UTC. 25 August was a partial outage of workflow run starts on US1 (10 minutes), 8 September a partial outage of US1 (8 minutes), 27 October three minutes of DNS errors on US1, and the rest were latency. Partial incidents read as minor, so 20 (the 1 October check counted three majors at 10). Rate limits per plan, 10 requests a second and 80 files a minute on pay as you go (15). 429 with RATE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED, exponential backoff with jitter, and wait for Retry-After when present. Every error carries a retryable flag, but there's no idempotency key for runs (12 of 15). Custom SLAs on Enterprise only, none published (0). Parse, Extract, Classify and Split are GA (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 77.)
- Security & auth, Datalab +11: Datalab 56 (Several hashed API keys with per-key 30-day spend caps, revoke-and-replace rotation, no scopes (24 of 30). Spend caps limit damage; results and files can be deleted by the key holder, and there's no read-only key (10 of 20). Returns document text with no prompt-injection guidance (2 of 15). cost_breakdown per request and usage tracking in the dashboard (8 of 15). A Secureframe trust centre and a SOC 2 report on the Team plan, TOTP enforcement for teams; no disclosure policy or security.txt found (12 of 20). 24+10+2+8+12 = 56.); Extend API + MCP 45 (REST calls use bearer keys scoped to one workspace, or organisation keys that only admins can create and that must name a workspace per request, and test-mode keys hit an isolated environment. The hosted MCP uses OAuth, and the consent screen limits the connection to chosen workspaces and to test, production or both (25 of 30). Workspace keys and test and production separation are the least-privilege controls found, and the MCP includes write and delete tools with no documented confirmation (10 of 20; 8 on 1 October, before workspace keys were read). Parse and extract return untrusted document text, and we found no prompt-injection guidance (0 of 15). No audit log or per-call log documented (0 of 15). The docs' compliance page claims SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and GDPR with reports in the trust centre, which gave security@extend.app per the 1 October check (not re-read on 2 November, a Vanta app page). No security.txt on www.extend.ai and no bug bounty found (10 of 20). 25 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 45.)
- Payments & pricing, Datalab +10: Datalab 40 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-1,000-page rates for every processor and add-on on the public pricing page (20). A $10 to $20 monthly allowance with no card (20). A person signs up in a browser (0). 0+20+20+0 = 40.); Extend API + MCP 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Credit prices and credits per page are published without a login, $0.01 a credit on pay as you go (20). Pay as you go starts with 10,000 free credits, and neither the pricing page nor the credits page says whether a card is needed (10 of 20, our call until that's confirmed). A person signs up in a browser (0).)
- Agent ergonomics, Datalab +5: Datalab 73 (Output as Markdown, HTML, JSON or chunks, `page_range` to limit pages, and cost_breakdown on results (20 of 25). File listing and pipeline endpoints, little else to paginate (14 of 20). Typed errors with retry guidance an agent can follow (18 of 20). No idempotency key; the docs say to poll a known request ID instead of resubmitting, and webhooks may be retried (12 of 20). Official Python SDK and CLI, one language (9 of 15). 20+14+18+12+9 = 73.); Extend API + MCP 68 (The hosted MCP loads every tool by default, 86 by the MCP page's own list, which scores 5 for more than 30. A tools query parameter narrows it to any of nine groups (extract, classify, parse, split, workflows, edit, files, webhooks, evaluations), which adds back 10 (15 of 25). List and output controls not checked in detail (12 of 20). Every error says whether it's retryable and links to docs (20). No idempotency key, and the MCP docs name no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations (6 of 20). A parse call needs only a file. Official SDKs in TypeScript, Python, Java and Go (15).)