# Jina Reader vs Scrapeless

> Scrapeless has a score of 54.3 (C) against Jina Reader's 45.3 (E). Both do scraping. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 26 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-scrapeless
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-scrapeless.md (~1,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-scrapeless.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-scrapeless.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

Scrapeless has a score of 54.3 (C) against Jina Reader's 45.3 (E). Both do scraping. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 26 points.

- Jina Reader: grade E, 45.3/100, rank #402 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jina-reader.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jina-reader.json
- Scrapeless: grade C, 54.3/100, rank #326 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapeless.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapeless.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Jina Reader for agent ergonomics (+26), transparency & trust (+5).

Pick Scrapeless for reliability (+15), schema & documentation (+23), maintenance & community (+16).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Jina Reader | Scrapeless | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 75 | Scrapeless +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 43 | 66 | Scrapeless +23 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 50 | Jina Reader +26 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 32 | 35 | Scrapeless +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 35 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 81 | Scrapeless +16 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 56 | Jina Reader +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -7 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **45.3 · E** | **54.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Jina Reader | Scrapeless |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Jina AI (Elastic) | Scrapeless (NST Labs Tech) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://r.jina.ai/` | `https://api.scrapeless.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 25 |
| 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 | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Popularity | 12k stars | 169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Jina Reader.** One URL prefix, no key needed, Markdown back. No price per token in any currency on the public page.

**Scrapeless.** Hosted streamable HTTP MCP at api.scrapeless.com/mcp with header auth, plus a stdio package, both in the official MCP registry. llms.txt quotes Deep SerpApi at $0.1 per 1,000 while the plan data charges $1 per 1,000 for Google Search.

## Before you call either

### Jina Reader

1. Prefix the URL, `https://r.jina.ai/https://example.com`, and read the Markdown
2. Send `x-max-tokens` to cap a page, or `x-token-budget` to refuse one that's too big
3. Use `x-target-selector` when you need one part of a page
4. Keyless is 20 requests a minute and can't search. Add a key for loops or s.jina.ai
5. Send `x-no-cache: true` when a page may have changed or a blocked response got cached

### Scrapeless

1. Use scrape_markdown for reading pages and save the browser_* tools for clicks and logins, since browser time bills by the hour
2. Call browser_close when done so the session and its billing stop
3. Set limit on crawl_start. Unset, it defaults to 10,000 pages
4. Crawls are asynchronous. Call crawl_start, then poll crawl_result with the returned id
5. Set SCRAPELESS_API_KEY for the stdio server. Older guides use SCRAPELESS_KEY, which still works as a fallback

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