# Diffbot vs ZenRows

> ZenRows scores 74.8 (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-zenrows
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-zenrows.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-zenrows.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-zenrows.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

ZenRows scores 74.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. 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
- ZenRows: grade BB, 74.8/100, rank #64 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zenrows.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zenrows.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.

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

### ZenRows (BB)

Good for: An agent hitting protected sites that wants the service to choose the setup and bill only success, and for agents that must onboard without a human.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 87 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 63
- Security & auth, 41 against 21
- Payments & pricing, 80 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 87 against 57

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: The Fetch API only takes the key in the query string


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Diffbot | ZenRows | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 87 | ZenRows +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 83 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 79 | ZenRows +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 21 | 41 | ZenRows +20 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 80 | ZenRows +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 87 | ZenRows +30 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 72 | ZenRows +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.3 · C** | **74.8 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Diffbot | ZenRows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Diffbot Technologies Corp. | ZenRows |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.diffbot.com/v3` | `https://api.zenrows.com/v1/` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or 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 | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 44 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.ZenRows/zenrows-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-06-15 | 2026-09-18 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2025-07-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-29 | 2024-09-01 |
| 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 | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 9 npm/wk, 45 PyPI/wk | 21 stars, 35k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.8/5 (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.

**ZenRows.** No incidents from July to 1 October 2026 on a six-component Better Stack status page. The Fetch API only takes the key in the query string.

## 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

### ZenRows

1. Start with mode=auto and let it escalate. Force js_render or premium_proxy only when you know the site needs it
2. Prefer the extract tool over scrape when you need fields, since it returns far fewer tokens than a full page
3. Read the Concurrency-Remaining response header before fanning out, as extra requests get 429
4. Set ZENROWS_AUTO_SIGNUP=false in stdio configs so a missing key fails loudly instead of creating an account

## Questions

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

ZenRows scores 74.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

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

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

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

Yes. Diffbot has a hosted endpoint at https://api.diffbot.com/v3 and ZenRows at https://api.zenrows.com/v1/.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Diffbot or ZenRows

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