# Decodo Web Data API vs ScrapingAnt (slim)

> Decodo Web Data scores 61.8 (C) to ScrapingAnt's 35.8 (F) for scraping. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapingant.md (~5,550 tokens) · this version ~2,880 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapingant.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-scrapingant
- 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)

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.

- Decodo Web Data API: C 61.8, rank #591 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/decodo.min.md
- ScrapingAnt: F 35.8, rank #1371 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapingant.min.md
- Decodo Web Data API, 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 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 Runs on your own machine.
- ScrapingAnt, good for A low-volume agent that wants cheap rendered fetches and a tiny tool list, and doesn't need an audit trail.

| Category | Decodo Web Data API | ScrapingAnt |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 59 | 30 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 67 | 43 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 82 | 66 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 45 | 10 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 5 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 62 | 56 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Decodo Web Data API | ScrapingAnt |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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 |
| Price for scraping | $0.50 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| Tools exposed | 33 | 3 |
| 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 |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | none | 90 npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- 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).)