# Diffbot vs ScrapeGraphAI

> ScrapeGraphAI scores 68.3 (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-scrapegraphai
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapegraphai.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapegraphai.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapegraphai.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

ScrapeGraphAI scores 68.3 (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
- ScrapeGraphAI: grade B, 68.3/100, rank #221 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapegraphai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapegraphai.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 60

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

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

### ScrapeGraphAI (B)

Good for: LLM pipelines that want prompt-to-JSON extraction and for agents that must pay with a wallet.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 64 against 55
- Schema & documentation, 88 against 83
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 63
- Security & auth, 39 against 21
- Payments & pricing, 90 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 70 against 57

Watch for: Rate limits and plan prices differ between docs pages


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Diffbot | ScrapeGraphAI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 64 | ScrapeGraphAI +9 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 88 | ScrapeGraphAI +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 72 | ScrapeGraphAI +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 21 | 39 | ScrapeGraphAI +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 90 | ScrapeGraphAI +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 70 | ScrapeGraphAI +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 60 | Diffbot +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.3 · C** | **68.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Diffbot | ScrapeGraphAI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Diffbot Technologies Corp. | ScrapeGraphAI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.diffbot.com/v3` | `https://v2-api.scrapegraphai.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for extraction | $0.90 per 1,000 pages | $10 per 1,000 requests |
| 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 | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 20 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.ScrapeGraphAI/scrapegraph-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-06-15 | 2026-07-31 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-06-04 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-29 | 2024-03-15 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 9 npm/wk, 45 PyPI/wk | 2.4k npm/wk, 46k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (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.

**ScrapeGraphAI.** An agent can mint an account and key over x402 or MPP with no signup. Rate limits and plan prices differ between docs pages.

## 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

### ScrapeGraphAI

1. Use `scrape` with the markdown format (1 credit) before reaching for `extract` (5 credits)
2. Read `GET https://v2-api.scrapegraphai.com/api/agent/protocols` for current packs and prices before paying over x402
3. MCP tool calls stop at 60 seconds. Use `crawl_start` and poll for anything longer
4. Back off 1, 2 then 4 seconds on a 429 `rate_limit_exceeded`. No Retry-After is sent
5. Use Orthogonal's x402 gateway when you need to pay per call without a key

## Questions

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

ScrapeGraphAI scores 68.3 (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 ScrapeGraphAI need an API key?

Diffbot needs an API key. ScrapeGraphAI takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

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

Yes. Diffbot has a hosted endpoint at https://api.diffbot.com/v3 and ScrapeGraphAI at https://v2-api.scrapegraphai.com.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Diffbot or ScrapeGraphAI

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