# Microlink vs Zyte API (slim)

> Zyte scores 69.7 (B) to Microlink's 65.9 (B) for scraping. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microlink-vs-zyte.md (~5,750 tokens) · this version ~3,130 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microlink-vs-zyte.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/microlink-vs-zyte
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Microlink's 65.9 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Microlink leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do scraping.

- Microlink: B 65.9, rank #395 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/microlink.min.md
- Zyte API: B 69.7, rank #228 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zyte.min.md
- Microlink, good for Agents that need link previews, screenshots, PDFs, metadata or a page as Markdown from one GET. Ahead on Agent ergonomics, 82 against 72; Payments & pricing, 47 against 40; Maintenance & community, 86 against 77; Transparency & trust, 75 against 67. Also Runs on your own machine.
- Zyte API, 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 52; Security & auth, 55 against 44.

| Category | Microlink | Zyte API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 52 | 85 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 89 | 85 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 82 | 72 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 44 | 55 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 47 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 86 | 77 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 75 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Microlink | Zyte API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Microlink Labs, S.L. | Zyte Group Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.microlink.io/mcp` | `https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Licence | none | 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 | 24 | 34 |
| Last release | 2026-10-31 | 2026-10-26 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-09-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2024-08-30 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| 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 | 805 npm/wk | 42k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.8/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Zyte API +33: Microlink 52 (Graded on the hosted lines. microlink.io/status exists but is drawn by script, showing only 'Please wait' to our reader, and status.microlink.io failed through our proxy, so components and history are unchecked and scored absent (0). No readable history (5). Free and keyed quotas are published, 5 and 25 requests a day and 2 at a time, with paid quotas from 46,000 a month and x-rate-limit headers on every response (15). 429 with ECONCURRENCY says to wait a second and retry, a quota 429 gives the reset time, and every call only reads, but there is no Retry-After header documented (12 of 15). The terms commit to 99.9% uptime on paid plans, with service credits only under an Enterprise agreement (10). Generally available (10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 12 + 10 + 10 = 52.); Zyte API 85 (Graded as a hosted API. status.zyte.com runs on Atlassian Statuspage with ten components and incident history (20). In the 90 days to 1 November 2026 its history feed lists two Zyte API incidents, both degraded browser rendering with higher latency and 520 errors, on 10 to 11 September and 13 September, neither marked as an outage, and three incidents outside the API, Scrapy Cloud periodic jobs on 17 August and the web dashboard and Scrapy Cloud periodic jobs down from 28 to 30 October, which Zyte says affected no other product. All partial, so minor (20 of 30). Rate limits are published as 3,000 requests a minute per key on standard plans and a custom limit on Enterprise, though per-site limits aren't (15). 429, 503 and 520 carry `Retry-After`, and the docs give a backoff table and say which responses to retry, per the 9 October check (15). Enterprise plans list service level agreements for support response times. No uptime SLA is published (5 of 10). Zyte API is generally available, and Zyte MCP carries no beta label on 1 November (10).)
- Security & auth, Zyte API +11: Microlink 44 (One API key per account in the `x-api-key` header, with no scopes, rotation or expiry documented. auth.md says to keep it out of URLs and no query option is documented (20 of 30). Tools are reads apart from microlink_function, which runs caller-supplied code against the page in Microlink's browser, and the checkout tools never return a key (10 of 20). Pages come back as Markdown and text, and no prompt-injection guidance was found in the docs, auth.md or the MCP README (0). A request id on every response, with no per-call log for the customer documented (4 of 15). security.txt is valid to 28 July 2027 and links a responsible-disclosure policy and acknowledgements. No bug bounty or certification found (10 of 20). 20 + 10 + 0 + 4 + 10 = 44.); Zyte API 55 (API keys are revocable, an organisation can hold several, and none travels in a URL. Keys carry no permission scopes. Zyte MCP signs in over OAuth and works through its own key, `mcp_access_key` (22 of 30). An owner can set a blocking spending limit per key. We found no read-only mode, and the MCP docs warn that the agent can delete schedules and collections with no undo, leaving approval to the MCP client (8 of 20). The API returns untrusted web content, and the only guidance found is to review what the agent asks to do (2 of 15). The Stats API and dashboard break usage down by key, domain and request type, requests can be tagged, and each response has a `request-id`. No per-request log for the operator was found (10 of 15). ISO 27001 certification per the trust centre, a responsible disclosure programme with a hall of fame and no rewards, penetration test reports under NDA, and no security.txt (www.zyte.com/.well-known/security.txt answered 404 on 1 November) (13 of 20).)
- Agent ergonomics, Microlink +10: Microlink 82 (24 MCP tools in @microlink/mcp 2.8.17 with no toolset filter found (15 of 25). `filter` selects fields, `embed` returns one field as the body, and Markdown and text tools return only page content (18 of 20). Error codes such as EAUTH, ERATE, ECONCURRENCY, EPRO and EPROXYNEEDED with documented fixes (19 of 20). Every tool but microlink_function sets readOnlyHint true and destructiveHint false, and calls are reads with a cache and `force` to refresh. No idempotentHint (18 of 20). Only `url` is required; official JavaScript SDK (@microlink/mql) and CLI, with examples in seven languages but no other official SDK found (12 of 15). 15 + 18 + 19 + 18 + 12 = 82.); Zyte API 72 (Graded on the REST API, with the MCP server noted. A request names the outputs it wants, so an agent can ask for extracted fields or `pageContent` in place of full HTML, but HTML and bodies come whole, up to 10 MB. Zyte MCP lists 34 tools at once, 26 of them for Scrapy Cloud, recounted from its docs on 1 November (15 of 25). No pagination applies to a single-URL call. Search takes `maxResults` from 10 to 100, and the Stats API pages and filters (14 of 20). Errors are problem+json with a stable `type` path, and the docs say which to retry and which to fix (20). Calls are reads, failed and rate-limited requests are free, and retries are safe. We could not read the MCP tool annotations, which need a sign-in (14 of 20). A call needs only `url` and one output flag. The only official client is Python, with a Scrapy plugin (9 of 15).)
- Maintenance & community, Microlink +9: Microlink 86 (@microlink/mcp 2.8.17 and microlink.io 1.1.4 on 31 October 2026, and October changelog entries for the API (30). 31 MCP releases tagged since 17 September and the October changelog's API changes (20). No open issues on microlinkhq/microlink, a monthly changelog, and email and feedback-form support (18 of 25). Not in the official MCP registry under its own namespace, though the server card names io.microlink/mcp; the JavaScript SDK is current (8 of 15). Lint, tests and coverage run on pull requests (10). 30 + 20 + 18 + 8 + 10 = 86.); Zyte API 77 (The Agentic Web Data plugin (zytedata/skills) released 0.4.1 on 26 October 2026, 6 days before 1 November (30). Every dated source counted. In the 90 days from 3 August the plugin released 0.3.0, 0.3.1, 0.4.0 and 0.4.1 (17 and 22 September, 5 and 26 October) and `scrapy-zyte-api` 0.36.0 on 20 August. `python-zyte-api` 0.11.0 of 23 July has left the window, and its main branch holds unreleased work since (a CVE floor for `brotli`, Python 3.15 support), with no release by 1 November (20). There is no public API changelog. Support runs through tickets and a Discord server, and we did not read GitHub issues (8 of 15 for a closed service). `python-zyte-api` 0.11.0 is current, with Python 3.10 or later, and covers one language. The official MCP registry lists only a third-party Zyte entry (io.github.pipeworx-io/zyte), none from Zyte (12 of 15). The client repository has test and publish workflows and merged dependency updates on 20 and 26 October 2026. We did not see CI results (7 of 10).)
- Transparency & trust, Microlink +8: Microlink 75 (The API is closed under terms naming Microlink Labs, S.L. with its registry details, and the SDK, MCP server and the libraries behind it are MIT (20 of 30). The DPA, updated 30 October 2026, gives cache retention of 24 hours by default up to 31 days, logs 15 days and deletion within 15 days, but the privacy policy is undated, names no controller and gives no periods (20 of 30). The terms promise advance notice before a paid feature is materially reduced, and the changelog records changes by month, with no notice period (10 of 20). Subprocessors list updated 16 October 2026, with services, data types and locations (18 of 20). 20 + 20 + 10 + 18 = 68.); Zyte API 67 (A closed service with terms last updated on 22 September 2026 (unchanged on 1 November) that name Zyte Group Limited and contain a Zyte API section. The Python client is BSD 3-Clause (15 of 30). The privacy policy (30 August 2024), a DPA and a sub-processor list are public, with retention stated for support tickets (4 years) and invoices (7 years). Retention of request data and scraped content isn't stated, and the terms let Zyte use Service Data for product development and product training (17 of 30). Site tier changes get two weeks' notice and the Smart Proxy Manager retirement was announced with a date, but there is no standing API deprecation policy and the terms allow changes with or without notice (10 of 20). The sub-processor list names 36 companies with addresses and purposes, and the privacy policy names the United States and Ireland as processing locations (16 of 20).)
- Payments & pricing, Microlink +7: Microlink 47 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plans are public and the Pro price is stated per 1,000 requests ($1.07), but Business and Enterprise are on request (15 of 20). Free key with 25 requests a day, no card (20). The free endpoint and hosted MCP server answer 5 requests a day with no key or signup, and the MCP checkout tools let an agent start a purchase that a person completes (12 of 20). 0 + 15 + 20 + 12 = 47.); Zyte API 40 (The official Python client documents x402 against `api-x402.zyte.com`, but our one unauthenticated request there on 1 November 2026, as on 9 October, returned 401 `/auth/not-valid` with `WWW-Authenticate: Basic` and no 402 challenge, and the main docs and pricing page don't mention it, so we score the line as not established (0 of 40). Per-1,000 prices for all five site tiers, screenshots and extraction are public, though a given site's tier needs the dashboard's cost estimator (20). $5 of credit for the first billing month on standard plans ($200 on Enterprise), with no card per the site, re-read in the pricing docs on 1 November (20). A person signs up in a browser, and the MCP route needs a browser sign-in too (0).)