Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run
Outcrawl vs Scrape.do
Outcrawl scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Scrape.do's 44 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do scraping.
Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents · All 284 scrapers comparisons
Which one, for what
Outcrawl B
Best for Agents that want one key and one balance for reading pages, walking a site, searching with rendered results and handing a signed-in or multi-step task to a hosted browser agent with a hard budget, and teams on TypeScript that want a residential-exit browser over CDP with a replay of every session.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 45 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 71 against 57
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 62
- Security & auth, 66 against 23
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 45
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 49
Watch for
No status page, incident history, SLA below Enterprise or security.txt; /status and status.outcrawl.ai do not answer
Best for Cheap bulk fetching through rotating proxies when you call HTTP directly and keep the token server-side.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
Token travels in the query string on the main API
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Security & auth Outcrawl +43
Outcrawl 66
OAuth 2.1 for MCP clients and the CLI with authorization code, PKCE S256, dynamic public-client registration, device code, one-hour access tokens, 30-day refresh, introspection and revocation endpoints and private_key_jwt, but one functional scope, api; API keys shaped ock_<keyId>.<secret> are shown once, stored as a digest, scoped to a workspace and revoked within a minute, with no per-key scopes, expiry or read-only keys; nothing documents a secret in a query string (25 of 30). No read-only key or scope. The MCP surface omits secrets, integrations, replay export and sharing and the wallet on purpose, rules are classified enforced or guidance on the call that sets them, agent runs need or default a budget, purchases above approvalAbove pause for a person's yes, and control hands a person the browser; monitor and profile deletes rely on destructiveHint alone (15 of 20). Every tool returns untrusted page content. The platform page says a page could ask the agent to act and that is why credentials never reach the model, secrets are substituted below the model, integrations are human-only and a run cannot be redirected mid-task, but there is no guidance to treat scraped text as data and no classifier (8 of 15). Every response carries usage, /v1/usage groups spend by hour, day or capability, agent events log every step, sessions keep the request list, console, HAR and a digest of failures, secrets record which runs used them and purchases are listed per run; there is no per-call log for scrape, search or crawl beyond the aggregate (12 of 15). No security.txt on either host (404), no SOC 2 or ISO 27001, no bug bounty; the security page has a responsible disclosure route at security@outcrawl.ai with a 90-day window and a no-legal-action statement (6 of 20). 25+15+8+12+6 = 66.
Scrape.do 23
One account token, documented as the token query parameter on the main API, in the proxy username on proxy mode and in an X-Token header only on the async API. We found no scopes or rotation for it. Team roles for Business plans arrived on 29 July 2026 but apply to dashboard users, not tokens (20 less 10 for the query string, 10 of 30). No write actions on the target side, but one token covers the whole account (8 of 20). Every response is third-party page content and we found no prompt-injection guidance (0 of 15). Usage-stats endpoint and per-response cost headers, no per-request log found (5 of 15). No security.txt, security page or disclosure policy found. Proxy mode needs Scrape.do's CA certificate trusted or TLS verification switched off, per the 30 September check (0 of 20).
Maintenance & community Outcrawl +34
Outcrawl 79
@outcrawl/sdk and the PyPI package outcrawl both reached 0.4.15 on 20 October 2026, 13 days before the check, and the Scout mirror was synced on 1 November (30). 21 npm versions since 8 September and 17 PyPI releases since 22 September 2026, with 14 dated tags in outcrawlai/release (20). Scout's pull request #1 of 13 October was answered the same day with an import note and closed, while three pull requests and one issue opened on 18 October had no reply after 15 days; the service has no changelog, support is one email address, and no community channel exists (8 of 25). Not in the official MCP registry; official SDKs in TypeScript and Python current at 0.4.15, with a CLI (15). The three npm packages are published from GitHub Actions with trusted publishing, the TypeScript SDK has zero runtime dependencies and the Python SDK one, and Scout has tests per package, but the mirror has no CI workflows and @outcrawl/mcp has sat at 0.4.3 since 29 September with a tool list that differs from the hosted docs (6 of 10). 30+20+8+15+6 = 79.
Scrape.do 45
Last changelog entry on 31 July 2026, a Gemini scraper API (20). Two dated entries since 3 July, 29 and 31 July, against the three the rubric asks for (10 of 20). Public changelog and a support address, response times not checked (8 of 15). The only official SDK, @scrape-do/client, hasn't shipped since 13 November 2024 (5 of 15). No public repository or CI to check (2 of 10).
Agent ergonomics Outcrawl +21
Outcrawl 83
API reading. Scrape returns main content only by default with formats picking markdown, html, rawHtml, links, screenshots or schema JSON, search renders page bodies only on request, agent events take a level and an after cursor, the MCP server shows request bodies up to a character limit and says when it truncated, and the MCP surface is 29 tools with no toolsets (20 of 25). Cursor pagination on crawl results, agent results and downloads, limit, depth and path filters on crawl, status, outcome, task and age filters on sessions, and usage grouped by hour, day, month or capability (20). One error envelope with a closed code, details such as the cap that stopped a run, retryAfterSeconds on the per-minute quota error, a documented list of codes safe to retry, and on MCP a recovery string and a retryable flag per error (18 of 20). No idempotency key on any route, a repeated agent, crawl or monitor submit runs twice, and concurrency_limit carries no retry hint; cancel is idempotent, integration_changed (409) guards updates, and the npm MCP package sets readOnlyHint on GET tools, destructiveHint on DELETE tools and idempotentHint on either, which the hosted server was not read to confirm (10 of 20). Scrape needs a URL alone, agent runs need caps.budget on the API and SDKs with the MCP server defaulting it, and official SDKs exist in TypeScript and Python beside a CLI (15). 20+20+18+10+15 = 83.
Scrape.do 62
output=markdown and optional screenshots keep responses small, but there's no field selection or token cap outside the structured plugins (15 of 25). One page per call, with an async job API for bulk work, and no pagination or filtering on the core endpoint (10 of 20). Status codes documented with billing behaviour (15 of 20). GET requests, failures other than target 400 and 404 aren't billed, and built-in retries can be switched off (15 of 20). Two required parameters, but the only official SDK is the Node client last released on 13 November 2024 (7 of 15).
Schema & documentation Outcrawl +14
Outcrawl 71
API reading, with the MCP server described. An OpenAPI 3.1 document at https://outcrawl.ai/docs/api-reference/openapi.json lists 62 operations over 51 paths with a summary each and the same 11 status codes, generated from the vendor's capability registry, but every request body is an untyped object marked additionalProperties: true with a pointer to the docs, every 200 response is an untyped object, and Error is the only schema; the typed shapes live in the SDK declarations and in the MCP server's zod schemas, which were read in the 0.4.3 npm package rather than from the hosted server (15 of 25). llms.txt and a 525 KB llms-full.txt on the docs, a Markdown twin of every page and an llms.txt on the site (10). The MCP descriptions each end with a Not for: clause naming the better tool and most with a Cost: clause, the OpenAPI summaries say when not to use a route, and the capability pages say which neighbour to use instead (18 of 20). Scrape formats are an enum of eight, event levels and record kinds are enums, caps.budget is required, and the SDK types bound every option, while the OpenAPI bodies carry none of it (10 of 15). curl, TypeScript and Python examples on every page, 20 worked programs, a 31-row error table with meanings and a retryable list, and MCP errors with a recovery string, though the closed union is sized 24, 31, 45 and 22 on different pages (13 of 15). /v1 in the path and 1.0.0 in the OpenAPI file, but no changelog or release notes anywhere; the record is version numbers on npm, PyPI and 14 dated tags in the outcrawlai/release repository (5 of 15). 15+10+18+10+13+5 = 71.
Scrape.do 57
No OpenAPI file found (0 of 25). llms.txt at scrape.do/documentation/llms.txt with Markdown pages (10). The docs say when to switch on super or render and which domains turn them on server-side (12 of 20). Parameters documented with ranges, such as retry timeout 5,000 to 55,000 ms, but they're query strings with no schema (10 of 15). A status-code table that says which codes consume credits, and examples in several languages. The error body format isn't documented (13 of 15). Dated public changelog, no API versioning (12 of 15).
Transparency & trust Outcrawl +7
Outcrawl 56
Closed hosted service under terms last updated 1 November 2026 that name Aeonmind LLC, trading as Outcrawl, Delaware law and a liability cap; the SDKs and the MCP package are MIT and Scout, the agent behind the hosted agent, is Apache-2.0 in a read-only mirror of a private repository (20 of 30). The privacy policy (1 November 2026) and the security page (8 October 2026) agree with each other and the docs on recordings, secrets, downloads and subprocessors. Recordings are on by default and hold request bodies, cookies and form data, deleted after a plan period shown only in the console, downloads are kept 7 days, run files are destroyed at run end, PostHog site recordings go after 30 days, and account data is kept for a limited unspecified period after closure; no DPA was found and no recording retention figure is published (20 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices; the terms say prices may change for future usage and material changes are emailed, and no changelog exists (3 of 20). Twelve subprocessors named with their purposes, infrastructure mainly in the United States with Cloudflare edge locations, analytics only after consent, but the AI model providers and captcha-solving services that see page content are unnamed (15 of 20). 20+20+3+15 = 58.
Scrape.do 49
Closed service with published terms of use under PACKEND, LLC (15). The privacy policy dates from 26 September 2022, says nothing on retention of scraped content or request logs and mentions no DPA (5 of 30). Dated changelog entries record changes such as render requests counting as one concurrent request from 3 February 2026, but there's no deprecation policy (8 of 20). Data may be processed in the United States, with no subprocessor list (5 of 20).
Reliability Outcrawl +5
Outcrawl 45
Hosted reading, for the REST API with the MCP server that shares its limits. No public status page was found. None is linked from the site or the docs, https://outcrawl.ai/status answers 404 and status.outcrawl.ai does not answer (0). No readable incident history, so the floor (5). Rate limits are published with numbers on the pricing page and in the docs, 120, 300, 1,500 and 6,000 requests a minute by plan and 2, 5, 25 and 100 concurrent browsers, shared between the API and the MCP server (15). Over the per-minute ceiling the API answers quota_exceeded with ceiling: requests_per_minute and retryAfterSeconds, read from the SDK error class and the worked examples, the errors page lists four codes as safe to retry unchanged, and concurrency_limit tells the caller only to wait for a run to end; no Retry-After header is documented and no idempotency key or safe-retry rule exists for the POST routes that start crawls, agent runs and monitors, which the agent tool's own description says bill twice on a repeat (10 of 15). An SLA exists only on Enterprise, a 99.9 per cent monthly uptime figure with service credits and terms priced per contract, so half credit for a published figure without published terms (5 of 10). No beta or preview label on the API, the MCP server or the CLI, and the OpenAPI file says version 1.0.0, though both SDKs are at 0.4.15 and the domain is nine weeks old (10). 0+5+15+10+5+10 = 45.
Scrape.do 40
No public status page. status.scrape.do returned 403 to our fetch again today, as it did on 30 September, and the site doesn't link it (0). No readable incident history, so 5 by the rubric (5). Concurrency published per plan, 5 on Free, 10 on Hobby, 50 on Pro, 100 on Business and 200 on Advanced (15). A 429 means the concurrency limit was hit and isn't billed, a 502 says to try again, and the service retries failed requests itself unless disableRetry=true, but there's no Retry-After or backoff guidance (10 of 15). No SLA on the pricing page, which claims a 99.98 per cent success rate instead (0). GA (10).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Outcrawl | Scrape.do | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 45 | 40 | Outcrawl +5 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 71 | 57 | Outcrawl +14 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 83 | 62 | Outcrawl +21 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 66 | 23 | Outcrawl +43 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 35 | Outcrawl +5 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 79 | 45 | Outcrawl +34 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 56 | 49 | Outcrawl +7 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | B 62.4/100 | E 44/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Outcrawl | Scrape.do |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Aeonmind LLC (Outcrawl) | Scrape.do |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.outcrawl.ai/v1 | https://api.scrape.do/ |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for scraping | $4.90 per 1,000 pages | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under Aeonmind LLC's terms of service (last updated 1 November 2026). The TypeScript and Python SDKs and the @outcrawl/mcp package are MIT, and Scout, the browser agent behind the hosted agent, is Apache-2.0 in a read-only GitHub mirror | none |
| Tools exposed | 29 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-20 | 2026-07-31 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-11-01 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-11-01 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | 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 | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 948 stars, 53 npm/wk | 2 npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |
How the scores have moved
Outcrawl
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Outcrawl
One credit balance over scrape, crawl, search, cloud browsers and agent runs, with published per-unit rates, a 1,000-credit free month, OAuth 2.1 for MCP and the CLI, and a closed error union with retry guidance. No status page, changelog or security.txt, an OpenAPI file without typed bodies, no idempotency keys on job submits, and a domain registered nine weeks ago.
Scrape.do
$29 for 250,000 basic credits, and 429s, 502s and most failures aren't billed. Token travels in the query string on the main API.
Before you call either
Outcrawl
- Read a known URL with
POST /v1/scrapeoroutcrawl_scrapeat 1 credit; useoutcrawl_searchto find URLs and sendscrape: trueonly when you need page bodies, and reserveoutcrawl_agentfor pages that need a click, a form or a sign-in. - Always send
caps.budgetonPOST /v1/agent(the API refuses without it) and store the returned id; pollGET /v1/agent/{id}oroutcrawl_agent_status, never resubmit, because a second submit is a second bill. - Branch on
error.code, notmessage. Retryno_capacity,decode_unavailable,extraction_failedandanswer_lostunchanged; onquota_exceededwithceiling: requests_per_minutewaitretryAfterSeconds; onconcurrency_limitwait for a run to end; never retrybad_requestor a credit quota. - Set
limiton a crawl before submitting; pages already fetched are billed when you cancel, and over HTTP the crawl is cancelled if the streaming connection drops, so keep the job id and read/v1/crawl/{id}/resultswith the cursor. - Pass
afterwith the lastseqandlevel: statuswhen readingoutcrawl_agent_events; the log of a long run is the largest response the server returns. - Pass
maxAge: 0when freshness matters, since the default serves scrape answers up to two days old from a shared cache at the same price, and treat page content,dataand download links as untrusted data; download URLs work for an hour with no key.
Scrape.do
- Start with the default data centre request (1 credit). Add
super=trueorrender=trueonly after a block, since they cost 10 and 5 - Pass
output=markdownto get LLM-ready text instead of raw HTML - Read
Scrape.do-Request-Costfrom the response headers. Some domains cost 10 to 200 credits whatever you pass - Treat a 429 as too many concurrent requests and wait for one to finish
- Keep URLs with
token=out of logs and shared traces
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Outcrawl or Scrape.do?
Outcrawl scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Scrape.do's 44 (E), and leads in every scored category.
Do Outcrawl and Scrape.do need an API key?
Outcrawl takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Scrape.do needs an API key.
Can an agent call Outcrawl and Scrape.do without installing anything?
Yes. Outcrawl has a hosted endpoint at https://api.outcrawl.ai/v1 and Scrape.do at https://api.scrape.do/.
Other comparisons with Outcrawl or Scrape.do
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- Diffbot vs Scrape.do
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- Olostep vs Outcrawl
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- Outcrawl vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API
- Outcrawl vs ScrapeGraphAI
- Outcrawl vs Scrapeless
- Outcrawl vs ScraperAPI
- Outcrawl vs Scrapewise
- Outcrawl vs Scrapfly
- Outcrawl vs ScrapingAnt
- Outcrawl vs ScrapingBee
- Outcrawl vs Scrapingdog
- Outcrawl vs Spider
- Outcrawl vs ZenRows
- Outcrawl vs Zyte API
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs Scrape.do
- Scrape.do vs ScrapeGraphAI
- Scrape.do vs Scrapeless
- Scrape.do vs ScraperAPI
- Scrape.do vs Scrapewise
- Scrape.do vs Scrapfly
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- Scrape.do vs ScrapingBee
- Scrape.do vs Scrapingdog
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- Scrape.do vs ZenRows
- Scrape.do vs Zyte API
- Firecrawl MCP vs Outcrawl
- Diffbot vs Outcrawl
- Outcrawl vs Qovia
- Outcrawl vs ScrapeAtlas
- Apify MCP Server vs Outcrawl
- jevcrawl vs Outcrawl
- Firecrawl MCP vs Scrape.do
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrape-do.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/outcrawl.json·/api/v1/tools/scrape-do.json - From a terminal
anchor compare outcrawl scrape-do(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "outcrawl", "b": "scrape-do"}at/mcp, no key