# Diffbot vs Olostep

> Olostep scores 63 (B) to Diffbot's 54.3 (C) for extraction. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-olostep
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-olostep.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-olostep.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-olostep.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Olostep scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Diffbot leads on transparency & trust. Both do extraction.

- Diffbot: grade C, 54.3/100, rank #687 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/diffbot.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/diffbot.json
- Olostep: grade B, 63/100, rank #410 of 950. 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 167 scrapers comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/web-scrapers/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Diffbot (C)

Good for: Agents that want typed article, product or discussion data from arbitrary pages without writing selectors, and teams that also want the Knowledge Graph.

Ahead on:
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 58

Watch for: The token is sent as the `token` query parameter on Extract and Knowledge Graph calls. It is the only scheme in the OpenAPI file

### Olostep (B)

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

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 60 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 87 against 63
- Security & auth, 28 against 21
- Payments & pricing, 65 against 40

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: The x402 challenge came back with no payment requirements in our probe


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Diffbot | Olostep | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 60 | Olostep +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 84 | Olostep +1 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 87 | Olostep +24 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 21 | 28 | Olostep +7 |
| 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) | 57 | 58 | Olostep +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 58 | Diffbot +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.3 · C** | **63 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Diffbot | Olostep |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Diffbot Technologies Corp. | Olostep Technologies, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.diffbot.com/v3` | `https://api.olostep.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for extraction | $0.90 per 1,000 pages | not published |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Diffbot's Terms of Use. The Python client, the TypeScript client and the agent skills are MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 11 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.olostep/olostep-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-06-15 | 2026-07-15 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2025-07-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-29 | 2025-07-15 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | 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 | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 9 npm/wk, 45 PyPI/wk | 24 stars, 8.9k npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Diffbot.** Extract returns typed JSON for articles, products, discussions and other page types with no selectors to write, under a public OpenAPI 3.1 contract and a free plan that needs no card. The API token travels in the URL query string, tokens carry no scopes, and no security page, certification or security.txt was found.

**Olostep.** OpenAPI 3.0.3 for every endpoint and a structured error body. The x402 challenge came back with no payment requirements in our probe.

## Before you call either

### Diffbot

1. Call `GET https://api.diffbot.com/v3/analyze?url=<encoded URL>&token=<token>` when the page type is unknown. Use `/v3/article` or `/v3/product` to force one schema
2. Keep the token out of logs and shared URLs. It sits in the query string, so any proxy or log that records the request URL records the token
3. Stay under 5 calls a minute on Free, 5 a second on Startup and 25 a second on Plus. On 429 wait at least one second and back off
4. Check a 200 response for `errorCode`. The official client raises `ExtractionError` when a 200 reports a failed extraction
5. Set `useProxy=default` only when a site blocks the fetch. A proxied page costs 2 credits against 1
6. Install `diffbot` from PyPI, not `diffbot-python`, which stopped at 0.3.0

### 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. Hosted MCP wants `Authorization: Bearer`, stdio wants OLOSTEP_API_KEY. Mixing them up shows 0 tools
5. Check the 402 body before paying over x402. Our probe got an empty one

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Diffbot or Olostep?

Olostep scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Diffbot leads on transparency & trust.

### Do Diffbot and Olostep need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Diffbot and Olostep without installing anything?

Yes. Diffbot has a hosted endpoint at https://api.diffbot.com/v3 and Olostep at https://api.olostep.com.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Diffbot or Olostep

- [Firecrawl MCP vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-olostep.md)
- [Bright Data vs Diffbot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-diffbot.md)
- [Bright Data vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-olostep.md)
- [Diffbot vs Jina Reader](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-jina-reader.md)
- [Diffbot vs Scrape.do](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrape-do.md)
- [Diffbot vs Scrapeless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapeless.md)
- [Jina Reader vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-olostep.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 ScraperAPI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scraperapi.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 ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Olostep vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-zyte.md)
- [Diffbot vs Firecrawl MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-firecrawl-mcp.md)
- [Diffbot vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md)
- [Diffbot vs ScrapeGraphAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapegraphai.md)
- [Diffbot vs ScraperAPI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scraperapi.md)
- [Diffbot vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Diffbot vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Diffbot vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Diffbot vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Diffbot vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [Diffbot vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Diffbot vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-zyte.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Diffbot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-diffbot.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Olostep](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-olostep.md)