# Diffbot vs Spider

> Spider scores 74.1 (BB) 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-spider-cloud
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-spider-cloud.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-spider-cloud.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-spider-cloud.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

Spider scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do extraction. Spider accepts x402. Diffbot doesn't.

- 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
- Spider: grade BB, 74.1/100, rank #76 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spider-cloud.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/spider-cloud.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.

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

### Spider (BB)

Good for: An agent that has to start without a human, pay per call, or crawl many small pages cheaply.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 63
- Security & auth, 42 against 21
- Payments & pricing, 96 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 57

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: Operated by BAGELMEN LLC with no address, retention periods or DPA in the privacy policy


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Diffbot | Spider | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 80 | Spider +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 87 | Spider +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 70 | Spider +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 21 | 42 | Spider +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 96 | Spider +56 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 85 | Spider +28 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 66 | Diffbot +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.3 · C** | **74.1 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Diffbot | Spider |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Diffbot Technologies Corp. | Spider (BAGELMEN LLC) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.diffbot.com/v3` | `https://api.spider.cloud` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for extraction | $0.90 per 1,000 pages | not published |
| x402 | no | yes, from $0.0005/call |
| 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 | 22 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `cloud.spider/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-06-15 | 2026-07-19 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-09-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-29 | 2026-10-01 |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 9 npm/wk, 45 PyPI/wk | 2.7k stars, 2.7k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.3/5 (8) |

## 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.

**Spider.** Keyless /scrape and working x402 v2 on every core route, so an agent needs no account. Operated by BAGELMEN LLC with no address, retention periods or DPA in the privacy policy.

## 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

### Spider

1. Every content route returns a JSON array, even /scrape. The status field is the page's, not the API call's
2. Leave request on smart and set return_format to markdown for LLM input
3. Set limit on /crawl. Unset, it caps only at your credit balance
4. Use /scrape with `stealth: true` instead of /unblocker, which is deprecated
5. Honour Retry-After on 429. Keyless use allows 4 requests a minute

## Questions

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

Spider scores 74.1 (BB) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

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

Diffbot needs an API key. Spider takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. An agent can also pay Spider per call over x402, with no account.

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

Yes. Diffbot has a hosted endpoint at https://api.diffbot.com/v3 and Spider at https://api.spider.cloud.

### Are Diffbot and Spider open source?

No open-source release is listed for Diffbot. Spider is open source (MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Diffbot or Spider

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