# Extend API + MCP vs Unstructured API + MCP

> Extend API + MCP has a score of 62.9 (B) against Unstructured API + MCP's 47 (D). Both do docs parse. The largest gap is reliability, 40 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/extend-vs-unstructured
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/extend-vs-unstructured.md (~1,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/extend-vs-unstructured.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/extend-vs-unstructured.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: 2026-10-05

Extend API + MCP has a score of 62.9 (B) against Unstructured API + MCP's 47 (D). Both do docs parse. The largest gap is reliability, 40 points.

- Extend API + MCP: grade B, 62.9/100, rank #211 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/extend.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/extend.json
- Unstructured API + MCP: grade D, 47/100, rank #390 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/unstructured.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/unstructured.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Extend API + MCP for reliability (+40), schema & documentation (+36), agent ergonomics (+10), transparency & trust (+15).

Pick Unstructured API + MCP for payments & pricing (+10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Extend API + MCP | Unstructured API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 27 | Extend API + MCP +40 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 51 | Extend API + MCP +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 58 | Extend API + MCP +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 42 | Extend API + MCP +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 40 | Unstructured API + MCP +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 80 | Extend API + MCP +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 67 | 52 | Extend API + MCP +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **62.9 · B** | **47 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Extend API + MCP | Unstructured API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Extend | Unstructured |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.extend.ai` | `https://transform.unstructured.io/api/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 86 | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `ai.extend/extend` | `io.unstructured/transform` |
| Last release | 2026-09-25 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 124k npm/wk, 59k PyPI/wk | 16k stars, 385 npm/wk, 612k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Extend API + MCP.** Hosted MCP with OAuth scoped to workspaces and to test or production, and a tools filter with nine groups. Parse is billed on top of Extract, Split and Classify, so Performance Extract costs 5 credits a page.

**Unstructured API + MCP.** Apache-2.0 library partitions 45+ file types locally at no cost, tagged 11 times since 3 July. No status page, no published rate limits and no SLA.

## Before you call either

### Extend API + MCP

1. Connect with `https://mcp.extend.ai/mcp?tools=parse,extract,files` to keep the schema small
2. Every MCP call names a workspace and TEST or PRODUCTION; start in TEST
3. Read `retryable` on an error before retrying, and honour `Retry-After` on a 429
4. Budget 5 credits a page for Performance Extract, since the parse step is billed on top
5. Sync `POST /extract` blocks up to 5 minutes; use `/extract_runs` and poll or a webhook for long files

### Unstructured API + MCP

1. For local ingestion, `pip install "unstructured[all-docs]"` and call `partition()`; no key needed, and set `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` to stop telemetry
2. Transform returns 202 with a Location header for long parses; poll it, then pass the parse `id` as `parse_id` to Extract
3. Uploaded files expire after 24 hours; keep the original and re-upload on a 404
4. Treat 409 `parse_expired` and 410 `result_expired` as a signal to rerun the parse, not to retry
5. Check for an existing job ID before resubmitting, since there's no idempotency key

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