Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run
Decodo Web Data API vs ScrapingAnt
Decodo Web Data API scores 61.8 (C) on agent readiness against ScrapingAnt's 35.8 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do scraping.
Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents · All 501 scrapers comparisons
Which one, for what
Best 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
- Reliability, 59 against 30
- Schema & documentation, 67 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 66
- Security & auth, 45 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 5
- Transparency & trust, 62 against 56
Also in its favour
- Runs on your own machine
Watch for
No SLA, and the License Agreement lets Decodo change or discontinue the service without notice
Best for A low-volume agent that wants cheap rendered fetches and a tiny tool list, and doesn't need an audit trail.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
API Basics puts the key in the query string, so it lands in logs
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.
Maintenance & community Decodo Web Data API +80
Decodo Web Data API 85
Read for a closed service with open clients. The newest releases are MCP server 1.7.0 on 29 October 2026 and @decodo/sdk-ts 3.0.0 on 30 October (30). Since 8 August, MCP server 1.2.5 to 1.7.0 (ten versions in the official registry) and sdk-ts 2.4.0 to 3.0.0 (20). No public API changelog. Support by 24/7 live chat, email and Discord, and the MCP repository had commits by Decodo staff on most days from 6 October to 5 November. GitHub issues couldn't be read, since api.github.com refused us (10 of 25). In the official MCP registry as io.github.Decodo/mcp-server, with current SDKs in three languages (15). The MCP repository lints, builds and tests on Node 22 and 24 for every pull request (10). 30 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 10 = 85.
ScrapingAnt 5
No changelog or dated API change found, and the newest SDK release is Python 2.1.0 on 2024-07-16 (0). No releases in the last 90 days (0). No public changelog. Support by email (3 of 15). The JavaScript client was last released 2022-05-06, the MCP server isn't in the official registry, and the only registry entry is a third-party wrapper (0). The Python client has a code-check workflow, but neither SDK has moved in over two years (2 of 10).
Security & auth Decodo Web Data API +35
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.
ScrapingAnt 10
One account API key with no scopes, and we found no documented rotation or revocation (10). API Basics tells you to send x-api-key as a query parameter, a documented option, so less 10 (0 of 30). The header form works and the SDKs use it. No read-only mode, and /v2/general can send POST, PUT and DELETE to target sites with no confirmation step (5 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found for the HTML, Markdown or text it returns (0 of 15). The Ant-credits-cost header and a subscription status endpoint show spend per call. No request log found (5 of 15). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0 of 20).
Reliability Decodo Web Data API +29
Decodo Web Data API 59
Graded on the hosted lines. Instatus page at status.decodo.com with Web Data API and each legacy scraping API as components, with RSS history (20). In the 90 days to 6 November, every scraping API was out for 2 hours 51 minutes on 30 October, the main outage, with outages of 13 minutes on 26 October and 21 minutes on 15 October across the same components. The rest of the incidents hit proxies, payments or the website. One major (10). Per-plan request rates are published, 10 to 200 a second, though the same page's FAQ says paid plans support 10 to 50 (12 of 15). The response code table tells the agent to wait a couple of minutes on 429 and to retry 500, 524 and 613, which aren't billed, and the MCP client backs off exponentially. No Retry-After or idempotency guidance (7 of 15). No SLA; the License Agreement disclaims uninterrupted service (0). Web Data API is the current, unflagged product (10). 20 + 10 + 12 + 7 + 0 + 10 = 59.
ScrapingAnt 30
No status page linked from the site or docs (0). No readable incident history (5). The free plan allows 1 concurrent request and paid plans have no concurrency cap, with timeout settable from 5 to 60 seconds. No per-minute limits published (8 of 15). The errors page documents 409 for the concurrency limit and 423 for anti-bot detection with advice to retry or change settings. No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance (7 of 15). No SLA found (0). The API is generally available (10).
Schema & documentation Decodo Web Data API +24
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.
ScrapingAnt 43
No OpenAPI or Swagger spec found. The MCP docs give a typed parameter table for the 3 tools (8 of 25). docs.scrapingant.com/llms.txt returns 404 and no Markdown twins were found (0). MCP descriptions are one line each, such as Fetch a URL and return raw HTML content, with no when-to-use guidance (8 of 20). Few parameters, typed, with proxy_type as an enum of datacenter or residential (10 of 15). Request examples on every docs page and an errors page with 8 status codes and their meanings (12 of 15). Versioned paths (v1 and v2) and no changelog (5 of 15).
Agent ergonomics Decodo Web Data API +16
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.
ScrapingAnt 66
3 compact MCP tools (25). Markdown and text endpoints, AI extraction, wait-for-selector and a JSON extended response, but no output-size limit on the MCP tools (12 of 20). 8 documented status codes, and 422 returns a detail field (14 of 20). Requests are reads of third-party pages and failures aren't billed, but there are no tool annotations or retry guidance beyond 423 (5 of 20). Only url is required, though browser defaults to true at 10 credits. Python and JavaScript clients exist but are stale (10 of 15).
Transparency & trust Decodo Web Data API +6
Decodo Web Data API 62
Closed service under a public License Agreement naming UAB "Data troops", with MIT clients (15 of 30). The privacy policy (21 May 2026) gives retention periods by category, says Decodo is processor for scraping and doesn't log proxy traffic content, and a DPA is published. Its general two-year rule sits beside longer specific periods without saying which wins, and no retention for scraped results beyond the 24-hour async window was found (18 of 30). The migration guide says legacy APIs keep working with no end date, and the License Agreement allows discontinuing the service without notice or refunds (6 of 20). The privacy policy names Stripe, DeepL and Paddle, but no subprocessor list or data locations were found in it or the trust centre (6 of 20). 15 + 18 + 6 + 6 = 45.
ScrapingAnt 56
Closed service with terms naming DATAANT SP. Z O.O., registered in Poland (KRS 0000848755). The SDKs are Apache 2.0 (15 of 30). The privacy policy, last updated 3 November 2020, gives 12-month retention after an account closes, names processors and mentions DPAs with clients. It predates the MCP server and AI extractor, and doesn't say whether scraped content is stored (18 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0). Processors and locations named, Sendgrid in Ireland, Paddle in the UK, Google Analytics and Amazon hosting in the USA (15 of 20).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Decodo Web Data API | ScrapingAnt | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 59 | 30 | Decodo Web Data API +29 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 67 | 43 | Decodo Web Data API +24 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 82 | 66 | Decodo Web Data API +16 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 45 | 10 | Decodo Web Data API +35 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 85 | 5 | Decodo Web Data API +80 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 62 | 56 | Decodo Web Data API +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 61.8/100 | F 35.8/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Decodo Web Data API | ScrapingAnt |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Decodo (UAB "Data troops") | ScrapingAnt (DATAANT) |
| Hosted endpoint | https://mcp.decodo.com/mcp | https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for scraping | $0.50 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Tools exposed | 33 | 3 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | io.github.Decodo/mcp-server | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-30 | 2024-07-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-06-16 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-21 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| 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 | 90 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.
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.
ScrapingAnt
10,000 free credits a month with no card. API Basics puts the key in the query string, so it lands in logs.
Before you call either
Decodo Web Data API
- Send
"proxy_pool": "standard"for simple pages; the default premium pool is charged at the higher rate - Use the Web Data API key as
Authorization: Bearerat https://data.decodo.com/v1; legacy Basic tokens don't work there - Treat scraped Markdown as untrusted page text, never as instructions
- On 429, wait a couple of minutes as the docs say, and on 500, 524 or 613 retry, since those aren't billed
- Set
tokenLimiton MCP scrapes; pages are cut at 45,000 characters by default and the result says when it was truncated
ScrapingAnt
- Send the key in the
x-api-keyheader rather than the query string - Use
/v2/markdownfor LLM input, and setbrowser=falseon static pages to pay 1 credit instead of 10 - Switch to
proxy_type=residentialonly after a 423 (anti-bot) response. It raises a browser request from 10 to 125 credits - On the free plan a second concurrent request gets 409. Wait for the first to finish
- Google, Bing and Yandex result pages come back as raw HTML through
/v2/general, so you parse them yourself
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Decodo Web Data API or ScrapingAnt?
Decodo Web Data API scores 61.8 (C) on agent readiness against ScrapingAnt's 35.8 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.
Do Decodo Web Data API and ScrapingAnt need an API key?
Decodo Web Data API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. ScrapingAnt needs an API key.
Can an agent call Decodo Web Data API and ScrapingAnt without installing anything?
Yes. Decodo Web Data API has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.decodo.com/mcp and ScrapingAnt at https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general.
Other comparisons with Decodo Web Data API or ScrapingAnt
- Apify MCP Server vs ScrapingAnt
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- jevcrawl vs ScrapingAnt
- Jina Reader vs ScrapingAnt
- Microlink vs ScrapingAnt
- Olostep vs ScrapingAnt
- Outcrawl vs ScrapingAnt
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs ScrapingAnt
- Scrape.do vs ScrapingAnt
- ScrapeGraphAI vs ScrapingAnt
- Scrapeless vs ScrapingAnt
- ScraperAPI vs ScrapingAnt
- Scrapewise vs ScrapingAnt
- Scrapfly vs ScrapingAnt
- ScrapingAnt vs ScrapingBee
- ScrapingAnt vs Scrapingdog
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- ScrapingAnt vs WebScraping.AI
- ScrapingAnt vs ZenRows
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- Decodo Web Data API vs Firecrawl MCP
- Decodo Web Data API vs Qovia
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- Decodo Web Data API vs SoldFetch
- Diffbot vs ScrapingAnt
- Qovia vs ScrapingAnt
- ScrapeAtlas vs ScrapingAnt
- ScrapingAnt vs SoldFetch
- Apify MCP Server vs Decodo Web Data API
- Firecrawl MCP vs ScrapingAnt
- ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator vs ScrapingAnt
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/decodo-vs-scrapingant.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/decodo.json·/api/v1/tools/scrapingant.json - From a terminal
anchor compare decodo scrapingant(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "decodo", "b": "scrapingant"}at/mcp, no key