Diffbot vs ScrapeAtlas

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.

ScrapeAtlas

An OpenAPI 3.1 file with 386 operations, typed parameters and a uniform failure object, published limits of 120 requests a minute and 4 concurrent, and 1 credit per successful request with failed calls free. No status page, security.txt or SDKs, the MCP server is a preview with 373 tools, and the product is five weeks old.

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

ScrapeAtlas

1. Send the key as x-api-key on https://api.scrapeatlas.com and check status on every HTTP 200; partial is usable data with coverage.warnings, failed and challenged carry failure.code.
2. Retry only on upstream_rate_limited, timeout and busy, after the retry-after on a 429. Stay under 120 requests a minute and 4 concurrent per account.
3. Pass the returned cursor back unchanged for the next page, and use since and until (ISO 8601 or Unix seconds) where listed; each page costs another credit.
4. Each platform has its own response schema, so read the endpoint's response fields before mapping; unknown values are null, never 0.
5. For MCP, connect to https://api.scrapeatlas.com/mcp over Streamable HTTP with Authorization: Bearer and expect 373 tools; the two account tools and failed calls cost 0 credits.