# Jina Reader vs Zyte API

> Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Jina Reader's 45.1 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do scraping. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-zyte
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-zyte.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-zyte.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-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 Jina Reader's 45.1 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do scraping.

- Jina Reader: grade E, 45.1/100, rank #774 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jina-reader.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jina-reader.json
- Zyte API: grade B, 69.7/100, rank #166 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zyte.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zyte.json

## Which one, for what

### Jina Reader (E)

Good for: Agents that read the web a page at a time and want to bound the tokens.

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: No price per token in any currency on the public page

### 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 60
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 43
- Security & auth, 55 against 32
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 65
- Transparency & trust, 66 against 58

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where Jina Reader loses 7 points for them

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 | Jina Reader | Zyte API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 85 | Zyte API +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 43 | 85 | Zyte API +42 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 72 | Jina Reader +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 32 | 55 | Zyte API +23 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 40 | Zyte API +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 77 | Zyte API +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 66 | Zyte API +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -7 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **45.1 · E** | **69.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Jina Reader | Zyte API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Jina AI (Elastic) | Zyte Group Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://r.jina.ai/` | `https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract` |
| 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 | Apache-2.0 | 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 | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-18 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-05-04 | 2026-09-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-07 | 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 | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 12k stars | 42k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

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

**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

### 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

### 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, Jina Reader or Zyte API?

Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Jina Reader's 45.1 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Jina Reader and Zyte API need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

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

Yes. Jina Reader has a hosted endpoint at https://r.jina.ai/ and Zyte API at https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract.

### Are Jina Reader and Zyte API open source?

Jina Reader is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Zyte API.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Jina Reader or Zyte API

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