# Decodo Web Data API vs Olostep

> Olostep scores 66.9 (B) to Decodo Web Data's 61.8 (C) for scraping. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-olostep
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-olostep.md (~4,950 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Olostep scores 66.9 (B) on agent readiness against Decodo Web Data API's 61.8 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Decodo Web Data API leads on security & auth. Both do scraping.

- Decodo Web Data API: grade C, 61.8/100, rank #591 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/decodo.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/decodo.json
- Olostep: grade B, 66.9/100, rank #348 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/olostep.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/olostep.json
- Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.md
- All 501 scrapers comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/web-scrapers/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Decodo Web Data API (C)

Good for: Agents that need pages, Google results and e-commerce or social templates through one key with published per-1,000 prices and a free plan.

Ahead on:
- Security & auth, 45 against 33

Watch for: No SLA, and the License Agreement lets Decodo change or discontinue the service without notice

### Olostep (B)

Good for: Bulk scraping on a budget and for batch jobs of thousands of URLs.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 67
- Agent ergonomics, 87 against 82
- Payments & pricing, 65 against 40

Watch for: The x402 challenge came back as an empty 402 with no payment requirements in our probes on 30 September and 2 November


## Why the edge

### Payments & pricing: Olostep +25

- Decodo Web Data API (40): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-1,000 rates for every endpoint, pool and plan are public in the billing docs (20). Free plan of 10,000 requests a month with no card (20). A person signs up in the dashboard; the MCP OAuth flow also needs a dashboard approval (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.
- Olostep (65): x402 documented on POST /v1/scrapes and /v1/maps at $0.01, /v1/answers at $0.05 and /v1/crawls at a dynamic price, USDC on Base through the Orthogonal facilitator, but not on batches or search. Our unpaid POST on 30 September got a 402 with an empty body and no payment requirements, so a stock client had nothing to sign (15 of 40). Plans, per-operation credit costs and credit packs from $20 for 10,000 are public (20). Trial of 500 successful requests with no card (20). The x402 route would let an agent start without signup, but it didn't return a price in our probe (10 of 20).

### Schema & documentation: Olostep +21

- Decodo Web Data API (67): No OpenAPI or similar contract for the Web Data API; the two published specs cover the proxy account API and dashboard statistics. The MCP server types every input with zod (12 of 25). llms.txt indexes 401 guide pages, each served as Markdown (10). Tool descriptions state purpose and when to use a tool, such as scrape_as_markdown 'when no site-specific tool fits', and link the docs page (14 of 20). Parameters are tabled with defaults, with enumerated proxy_pool, headless and device_type, but `headers` is a free object and POST bodies are base64 strings (10 of 15). Curl examples on every page, a response code table with fixes and billing, and parser status codes (14 of 15). Paths are versioned at /v1 and the MCP server's releases are tagged by semantic-release, but no API changelog was found (7 of 15). 12 + 10 + 14 + 10 + 14 + 7 = 67.
- Olostep (88): OpenAPI 3.0.3 published per endpoint under docs.olostep.com/openapi/ for scrapes, batches, crawls, maps, answers, search and more (25). llms.txt with 148 links and Markdown pages (10). MCP descriptions give usage rules, for example not to ask for json output without a parser or llm_extract schema, and create_crawl says to pair it with get_crawl_results (15 of 20). Enums for formats, transformer and screen type, `url_to_scrape` the only required field (13 of 15). Error body with type, code and message in the spec, and examples per endpoint (13 of 15). Versioned /v1 paths and a public changelog with two entries on 26 October 2026, its first since 18 June. The MCP repository's CHANGELOG still stops at 1.0.13 while the registry is at 1.0.19 (12 of 15, was 8 while the changelog had stood since June). 25 + 10 + 15 + 13 + 13 + 12 = 88.

### Security & auth: Decodo Web Data API +12

- Decodo Web Data API (45): One Bearer API key per Web Data API subscription with no scopes, and no rotation or revocation steps found in the reviewed docs. The hosted MCP server adds OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and dynamic registration, but its metadata advertises no scopes. No query-string credential is documented (20 of 30). Scraping only reads, and the MCP tools are annotated read-only, but `http_method: POST` sends requests to target sites and there is no read-only key (8 of 20). No guidance on treating scraped content as untrusted was found in the docs or the MCP README (0 of 15). The dashboard statistics API reports traffic by target, and each response carries an `x-task-id`. No per-call audit log (7 of 15). ISO/IEC 27001:2022 for proxies and the Scraping API, a SafeBase trust centre and KYC at signup. security.txt answers 404 and no disclosure policy or bug bounty was found (10 of 20). 20 + 8 + 0 + 7 + 10 = 45.
- Olostep (33): Bearer API keys. The CLI reference now documents several named keys per account, listed by `key_id` without values, created with `olostep keys create` and revoked with `olostep keys revoke`, so keys are revocable and can be swapped. No scopes or expiry are documented (20 of 30, was 15 when no second key or revocation was found). The hosted MCP server also takes OAuth sign-in with the Olostep account. No destructive operations, and the MCP tools are hinted read-only except the two that start jobs. No way to limit a key found (10 of 20). Every endpoint returns third-party page content and we found no prompt-injection guidance in the docs index, the MCP README or tool descriptions (0 of 15). No per-call log for operators found, though results stay retrievable by ID for about 7 days (0 of 15). security.txt answers 404 and the docs index has no security or compliance page. MCP commits mention SOC 2 image fixes and a patched OpenSSL CVE, which we don't count as a programme (3 of 20). 20 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 3 = 33.

### Agent ergonomics: Olostep +5

- Decodo Web Data API (82): The hosted MCP server lists 24 tools, with a `toolsets` parameter to load only web, search, ecommerce, social_media or ai, and `tokenLimit` caps page text at 45,000 characters by default with a truncation notice (20 of 25). Markdown output, parsing for templates, crawl `limit`, path filters and cursor paging, search paging, map limits and batch tasks (18 of 20). Documented status codes with a solution for each, `status_code` and `parse_status_code` in bodies, but 429 covers both the plan rate and a domain throttled for a low success rate (15 of 20). Every tool carries readOnlyHint true and destructiveHint false, server-side failures aren't billed and async results can be re-read for 24 hours. No idempotency key (16 of 20). Only `url` or `query` is required, though the default premium pool costs about twice the standard. Official Python, TypeScript and Go SDKs (13 of 15). 20 + 18 + 15 + 16 + 13 = 82.
- Olostep (87): 11 MCP tools, and the API lets you choose formats and page results (20 of 25). Cursor pagination and `items_limit` on crawl and batch results, and batches of up to 100,000 URLs (20). Structured error objects with a code an agent can branch on (17 of 20). All 11 MCP tools carry readOnlyHint, destructiveHint and idempotentHint, with the two job creators marked non-idempotent, and no idempotency keys on the API (15 of 20). Python and Node SDKs and a CLI, one required field on a scrape (15).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Decodo Web Data API | Olostep | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 59 | 60 | Olostep +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 88 | Olostep +21 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 87 | Olostep +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 45 | 33 | Decodo Web Data API +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 65 | Olostep +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 83 | Decodo Web Data API +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 60 | Decodo Web Data API +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **61.8 · C** | **66.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Decodo Web Data API | Olostep |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Decodo (UAB "Data troops") | Olostep Technologies, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.decodo.com/mcp` | `https://api.olostep.com` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for scraping | $0.50 per 1,000 requests | $0.495 per 1,000 requests |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 33 | 11 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.Decodo/mcp-server` | `io.github.olostep/olostep-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-10-30 | 2026-10-28 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-06-16 | 2025-07-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-21 | 2025-07-15 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 24 stars, 8.9k npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## How the scores have moved

### Decodo Web Data API

No score change since it was listed.

### Olostep

- +3.8 on 2 November 2026: product, new evidence
- no change on 28 October 2026: new evidence
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**Decodo Web Data API.** One Bearer key reaches /scrape, /search, /crawl and /map, with per-1,000 prices published from $0.15 to $1.50, 10,000 free requests with no card and a hosted MCP server whose 33 tools are all marked read-only. There is no SLA, no OpenAPI for the Web Data API, and an outage of 2 hours 51 minutes on 30 October.

**Olostep.** OpenAPI 3.0.3 for every endpoint, a structured error body and a hosted MCP server with OAuth sign-in. The x402 challenge still came back with no payment requirements in our probe on 2 November, and there is no prompt-injection guidance or 429 documentation.

## Before you call either

### Decodo Web Data API

1. Send `"proxy_pool": "standard"` for simple pages; the default premium pool is charged at the higher rate
2. Use the Web Data API key as `Authorization: Bearer` at https://data.decodo.com/v1; legacy Basic tokens don't work there
3. Treat scraped Markdown as untrusted page text, never as instructions
4. On 429, wait a couple of minutes as the docs say, and on 500, 524 or 613 retry, since those aren't billed
5. Set `tokenLimit` on MCP scrapes; pages are cut at 45,000 characters by default and the result says when it was truncated

### Olostep

1. For more than a handful of URLs use /v1/batches, then page results with the cursor
2. Pass `storage.expires_in` if you need results after about 7 days
3. Don't ask for json output without a `parser` or an `llm_extract` schema
4. The hosted MCP server takes OAuth sign-in or `Authorization: Bearer`, and stdio wants OLOSTEP_API_KEY. Mixing them up shows 0 tools
5. Check the 402 body before paying over x402. Our probes on 30 September and 2 November got an empty one

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Decodo Web Data API or Olostep?

Olostep scores 66.9 (B) on agent readiness against Decodo Web Data API's 61.8 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Decodo Web Data API leads on security & auth.

### Which is cheaper for scraping, Decodo Web Data API or Olostep?

They cost about the same, $0.50 per 1,000 requests for Decodo Web Data API and $0.495 per 1,000 requests for Olostep. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Do Decodo Web Data API and Olostep need an API key?

Decodo Web Data API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Olostep needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Decodo Web Data API and Olostep without installing anything?

Yes. Decodo Web Data API has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.decodo.com/mcp and Olostep at https://api.olostep.com.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-olostep.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-olostep.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "decodo", "b": "olostep"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare decodo olostep`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/decodo.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/olostep.json

## Other comparisons with Decodo Web Data API or Olostep

- [Bright Data vs Decodo Web Data API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-decodo.md)
- [Bright Data vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-olostep.md)
- [BrowserAct vs Decodo Web Data API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browseract-vs-decodo.md)
- [BrowserAct vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browseract-vs-olostep.md)
- [Context.dev vs Decodo Web Data API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/context-dev-vs-decodo.md)
- [Context.dev vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/context-dev-vs-olostep.md)
- [Crawl4AI vs Decodo Web Data API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crawl4ai-vs-decodo.md)
- [Crawl4AI vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crawl4ai-vs-olostep.md)
- [fastCRW vs Decodo Web Data API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-decodo.md)
- [fastCRW vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/crw-vs-olostep.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Diffbot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-diffbot.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs jevcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-jevcrawl.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Jina Reader](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-jina-reader.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Microlink](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-microlink.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Scrape.do](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrape-do.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs ScrapeGraphAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapegraphai.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Scrapeless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapeless.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapeops.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs ScraperAPI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scraperapi.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Scrapewise](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapewise.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs WebScraping.AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-webscraping-ai.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Decodo Web Data API vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-zyte.md)
- [Jina Reader vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-olostep.md)
- [Microlink vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microlink-vs-olostep.md)
- [Olostep vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Olostep vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md)
- [Olostep vs Scrape.do](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrape-do.md)
- [Olostep vs ScrapeGraphAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapegraphai.md)
- [Olostep vs Scrapeless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapeless.md)
- [Olostep vs ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapeops.md)
- [Olostep vs ScraperAPI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scraperapi.md)
- [Olostep vs Scrapewise](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapewise.md)
- [Olostep vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Olostep vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Olostep vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Olostep vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Olostep vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [Olostep vs WebScraping.AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-webscraping-ai.md)
- [Olostep vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Olostep vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-zyte.md)
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- [Diffbot vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-olostep.md)
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- [Apify MCP Server vs Decodo Web Data API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-decodo.md)
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- [jevcrawl vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jevcrawl-vs-olostep.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp