# Olostep vs Scrapfly

> Scrapfly has a score of 69.8 (B) against Olostep's 63.1 (B). Both do scraping. The largest gap is security & auth, 42 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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

Scrapfly has a score of 69.8 (B) against Olostep's 63.1 (B). Both do scraping. The largest gap is security & auth, 42 points.

- Olostep: grade B, 63.1/100, rank #210 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/olostep.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/olostep.json
- Scrapfly: grade B, 69.8/100, rank #107 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapfly.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapfly.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Olostep for reliability (+10), agent ergonomics (+7), payments & pricing (+25).

Pick Scrapfly for schema & documentation (+11), security & auth (+42), maintenance & community (+26), transparency & trust (+17).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Olostep | Scrapfly | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 60 | 50 | Olostep +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 95 | Scrapfly +11 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 80 | Olostep +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 28 | 70 | Scrapfly +42 |
| 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 | 84 | Scrapfly +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 77 | Scrapfly +17 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.1 · B** | **69.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Olostep | Scrapfly |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Olostep Technologies, Inc. | Scrapfly (Joam Intelligence, LLC) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.olostep.com` | `https://api.scrapfly.io/scrape` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | payer tooling only | no |
| Licence | MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 11 | 61 |
| 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 | `io.github.olostep/olostep-mcp-server` | `io.scrapfly.mcp/mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-07-15 | 2026-09-08 |
| Popularity | 24 stars, 8.9k npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk | 14 stars, 21k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 4/5 (2) |

## 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.

**Scrapfly.** The error catalogue documents HTTP status, retry behaviour and billing for over 100 codes. The MCP server loads 61 tools at once.

## 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

### Scrapfly

1. Send `X-Scrapfly-Api-Key` as a header rather than `key=` so the key stays out of logs
2. Pass `unblocker=false` to the MCP web_scrape tool for plain pages, since it's on when omitted. `asp` is the deprecated alias
3. Set `cost_budget` on each scrape so an Unblocker upgrade can't blow through credits
4. Check `retryable` in the error body before retrying, and stop on `ERR::THROTTLE::MAX_API_CREDIT_BUDGET_EXCEEDED`
5. Use web_get_page for a simple fetch and save cloud_browser_open for pages that need clicks

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