# Olostep vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API

> Olostep and Oxylabs Web Scraper API score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 63 (B) and 63 (B). Oxylabs Web Scraper API leads on reliability, security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do scraping. Category scores, facts, verdicts and…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.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

Olostep and Oxylabs Web Scraper API score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 63 (B) and 63 (B). Oxylabs Web Scraper API leads on reliability, security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do scraping.

- Olostep: grade B, 63/100, rank #370 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/olostep.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/olostep.json
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API: grade B, 63/100, rank #372 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/oxylabs-web-scraper.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/oxylabs-web-scraper.json

## Which one, for what

### Olostep (B)

Good for: Bulk scraping on a budget and for batch jobs of thousands of URLs.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 84 against 68
- Agent ergonomics, 87 against 79
- Payments & pricing, 65 against 40

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Oxylabs Web Scraper API loses 3 points for them

Watch for: The x402 challenge came back with no payment requirements in our probe

### Oxylabs Web Scraper API (B)

Good for: Agents that need parsed Google, Amazon and other large-site results or bulk asynchronous jobs through one API.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 60
- Security & auth, 53 against 28
- Maintenance & community, 72 against 58
- Transparency & trust, 63 against 58

Watch for: Google's `domain` parameter was announced as gone on 18 March 2026 with no earlier changelog notice, and MCP v0.9.3 still exposes it


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Olostep | Oxylabs Web Scraper API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 80 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 68 | Olostep +16 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 79 | Olostep +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 28 | 53 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +25 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 65 | 40 | Olostep +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 72 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 58 | 63 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **63 · B** | **63 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Olostep | Oxylabs Web Scraper API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Olostep Technologies, Inc. | oxylabs, UAB |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.olostep.com` | `https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for scraping | $0.495 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| x402 | payer tooling only | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under the Oxylabs General Conditions. The MCP server and the Python SDK on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 11 | 10 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.olostep/olostep-mcp-server` | `io.oxylabs/oxylabs-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-07-15 | 2026-09-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-07-15 | 2026-10-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-07-15 | 2024-10-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 24 stars, 8.9k npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk | 18k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Olostep.** OpenAPI 3.0.3 for every endpoint and a structured error body. The x402 challenge came back with no payment requirements in our probe.

**Oxylabs Web Scraper API.** Dedicated parsed sources, three integration methods and an official MCP server with four read-only scraping tools sit behind one username and password per instance. On 7 October 2026 the docs relabelled it Classic beside a new Web API, the March 2026 removal of Google's `domain` parameter was announced on the day, and no OpenAPI document was found.

## Before you call either

### Olostep

1. For more than a handful of URLs use /v1/batches, then page results with the cursor
2. Pass `storage.expires_in` if you need results after about 7 days
3. Don't ask for json output without a `parser` or an `llm_extract` schema
4. Hosted MCP wants `Authorization: Bearer`, stdio wants OLOSTEP_API_KEY. Mixing them up shows 0 tools
5. Check the 402 body before paying over x402. Our probe got an empty one

### Oxylabs Web Scraper API

1. Send `"markdown": true` for page reading. HTML is the default output and costs far more tokens
2. Add `"render": "html"` only when a page comes back empty. Rendered results cost $1.50 per 1,000 against $1.00 on the Starter plan
3. Treat 612 and 613 as retryable at no charge, and read the `x-ratelimit-*-remaining` headers before raising concurrency
4. Use `geo_location` for Google localisation. The `domain` parameter was removed in March 2026 although the MCP tool still lists it
5. Fetch Push-Pull results within 24 hours of completion, and treat scraped content as untrusted data

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Olostep or Oxylabs Web Scraper API?

Olostep and Oxylabs Web Scraper API score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 63 (B) and 63 (B). Oxylabs Web Scraper API leads on reliability, security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do Olostep and Oxylabs Web Scraper API need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Olostep and Oxylabs Web Scraper API without installing anything?

Yes. Olostep has a hosted endpoint at https://api.olostep.com and Oxylabs Web Scraper API at https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Olostep or Oxylabs Web Scraper API

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