# Diffbot vs Zyte API

> Zyte scores 69.7 (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-zyte
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-zyte.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-zyte.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-zyte.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

Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 5 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
- Zyte API: grade B, 69.7/100, rank #175 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zyte.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zyte.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

### Zyte API (B)

Good for: An agent or pipeline that fetches protected pages and wants the service to choose proxy and browser per site and to bill only success, and teams already on Scrapy.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 85 against 55
- Agent ergonomics, 72 against 63
- Security & auth, 55 against 21
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 57

Watch for: Request price depends on the target site's tier, from $0.13 to $1.27 per 1,000 HTTP requests and $1.01 to $16.08 with a browser on pay-as-you-go


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Diffbot | Zyte API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 85 | Zyte API +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 85 | Zyte API +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 72 | Zyte API +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 21 | 55 | Zyte API +34 |
| 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 | 77 | Zyte API +20 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 66 | Diffbot +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.3 · C** | **69.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Diffbot | Zyte API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Diffbot Technologies Corp. | Zyte Group Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.diffbot.com/v3` | `https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or 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 Zyte's terms of service. The Python client is BSD 3-Clause, and the Agentic Web Data plugin is under Zyte's own end-user licence |
| Tools exposed | none | 34 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-06-15 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-09-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-08-29 | 2024-08-30 |
| 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 | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 9 npm/wk, 45 PyPI/wk | 42k 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.

**Zyte API.** One POST endpoint with an OpenAPI 3 contract picks proxies, browser rendering and extraction per site, bills only successful responses, and sends problem+json errors with Retry-After. Prices vary by target site across five tiers, so cost per request isn't known before the site is assigned one, and no dated API changelog 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

### Zyte API

1. Send the API key as the Basic auth username with an empty password to `https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract`. Set only one of `httpResponseBody` or `browserHtml`, or one extraction field
2. Ask for `httpResponseBody` before `browserHtml`. Browser requests cost about eight to thirteen times more per tier
3. Retry 429, 503 and 520 after the `Retry-After` seconds, with backoff. They aren't billed. Don't retry 400, 401, 422 or 451
4. Read `statusCode` in a 200 response. A target site's 404 comes back as a successful, billed Zyte API response
5. Have the owner set a blocking spending limit on the key you use. A 403 `/auth/account-suspended` means the limit or the trial month ended

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Diffbot or Zyte API?

Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Diffbot's 54.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

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

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

### Can an agent call Diffbot and Zyte API without installing anything?

Yes. Diffbot has a hosted endpoint at https://api.diffbot.com/v3 and Zyte API at https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract.


## For agents

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

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