# Diffbot vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API

> Oxylabs Web Scraper 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-oxylabs-web-scraper
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md (~2,900 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.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

Oxylabs Web Scraper API scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Diffbot leads on schema & documentation and 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
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API: grade B, 63/100, rank #412 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/oxylabs-web-scraper.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/oxylabs-web-scraper.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:
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 68
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 63

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Oxylabs Web Scraper API loses 3 points for them

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

### Oxylabs Web Scraper API (B)

Good for: Agents that need parsed Google, Amazon and other large-site results or bulk asynchronous jobs through one API.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 63
- Security & auth, 53 against 21
- Maintenance & community, 72 against 57

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Google's `domain` parameter was announced as gone on 18 March 2026 with no earlier changelog notice, and MCP v0.9.3 still exposes it


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Diffbot | Oxylabs Web Scraper API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 80 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 68 | Diffbot +15 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 79 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 21 | 53 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +32 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 72 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +15 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 63 | Diffbot +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **54.3 · C** | **63 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Diffbot | Oxylabs Web Scraper API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Diffbot Technologies Corp. | oxylabs, UAB |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.diffbot.com/v3` | `https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for extraction | $0.90 per 1,000 pages | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Diffbot's Terms of Use. The Python client, the TypeScript client and the agent skills are MIT | Proprietary service under the Oxylabs General Conditions. The MCP server and the Python SDK on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 10 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.oxylabs/oxylabs-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-06-15 | 2026-09-07 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-10-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-29 | 2024-10-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 9 npm/wk, 45 PyPI/wk | 18k PyPI/wk |

## 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.

**Oxylabs Web Scraper API.** Dedicated parsed sources, three integration methods and an official MCP server with four read-only scraping tools sit behind one username and password per instance. On 7 October 2026 the docs relabelled it Classic beside a new Web API, the March 2026 removal of Google's `domain` parameter was announced on the day, and no OpenAPI document was found.

## 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

### Oxylabs Web Scraper API

1. Send `"markdown": true` for page reading. HTML is the default output and costs far more tokens
2. Add `"render": "html"` only when a page comes back empty. Rendered results cost $1.50 per 1,000 against $1.00 on the Starter plan
3. Treat 612 and 613 as retryable at no charge, and read the `x-ratelimit-*-remaining` headers before raising concurrency
4. Use `geo_location` for Google localisation. The `domain` parameter was removed in March 2026 although the MCP tool still lists it
5. Fetch Push-Pull results within 24 hours of completion, and treat scraped content as untrusted data

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Diffbot or Oxylabs Web Scraper API?

Oxylabs Web Scraper API scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Diffbot leads on schema & documentation and transparency & trust.

### Do Diffbot and Oxylabs Web Scraper API need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Diffbot and Oxylabs Web Scraper API without installing anything?

Yes. Diffbot has a hosted endpoint at https://api.diffbot.com/v3 and Oxylabs Web Scraper API at https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries.


## For agents

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

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