# Outcrawl vs ScrapingAnt

> Outcrawl scores 62.4 (B) to ScrapingAnt's 35.8 (F) for scraping. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapingant
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapingant.md (~5,750 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-02

Outcrawl scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against ScrapingAnt's 35.8 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do scraping.

- Outcrawl: grade B, 62.4/100, rank #456 of 1268. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/outcrawl.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/outcrawl.json
- ScrapingAnt: grade F, 35.8/100, rank #1177 of 1268. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapingant.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapingant.json
- Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.md
- All 284 scrapers comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/web-scrapers/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Outcrawl (B)

Good 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 30
- Schema & documentation, 71 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 66
- Security & auth, 66 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 79 against 5

Watch for: No status page, incident history, SLA below Enterprise or security.txt; /status and status.outcrawl.ai do not answer

### ScrapingAnt (F)

Good for: A low-volume agent that wants cheap rendered fetches and a tiny tool list, and doesn't need an audit trail.

Watch for: API Basics puts the key in the query string, so it lands in logs


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Outcrawl +74

- 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.
- ScrapingAnt (5): No changelog or dated API change found, and the newest SDK release is Python 2.1.0 on 2024-07-16 (0). No releases in the last 90 days (0). No public changelog. Support by email (3 of 15). The JavaScript client was last released 2022-05-06, the MCP server isn't in the official registry, and the only registry entry is a third-party wrapper (0). The Python client has a code-check workflow, but neither SDK has moved in over two years (2 of 10).

### Security & auth: Outcrawl +56

- 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.
- ScrapingAnt (10): One account API key with no scopes, and we found no documented rotation or revocation (10). API Basics tells you to send x-api-key as a query parameter, a documented option, so less 10 (0 of 30). The header form works and the SDKs use it. No read-only mode, and /v2/general can send POST, PUT and DELETE to target sites with no confirmation step (5 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance found for the HTML, Markdown or text it returns (0 of 15). The Ant-credits-cost header and a subscription status endpoint show spend per call. No request log found (5 of 15). No security.txt, disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification found (0 of 20).

### Schema & documentation: Outcrawl +28

- 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.
- ScrapingAnt (43): No OpenAPI or Swagger spec found. The MCP docs give a typed parameter table for the 3 tools (8 of 25). docs.scrapingant.com/llms.txt returns 404 and no Markdown twins were found (0). MCP descriptions are one line each, such as Fetch a URL and return raw HTML content, with no when-to-use guidance (8 of 20). Few parameters, typed, with proxy_type as an enum of `datacenter` or `residential` (10 of 15). Request examples on every docs page and an errors page with 8 status codes and their meanings (12 of 15). Versioned paths (v1 and v2) and no changelog (5 of 15).

### Agent ergonomics: Outcrawl +17

- 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.
- ScrapingAnt (66): 3 compact MCP tools (25). Markdown and text endpoints, AI extraction, wait-for-selector and a JSON extended response, but no output-size limit on the MCP tools (12 of 20). 8 documented status codes, and 422 returns a detail field (14 of 20). Requests are reads of third-party pages and failures aren't billed, but there are no tool annotations or retry guidance beyond 423 (5 of 20). Only url is required, though browser defaults to true at 10 credits. Python and JavaScript clients exist but are stale (10 of 15).

### Reliability: Outcrawl +15

- 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.
- ScrapingAnt (30): No status page linked from the site or docs (0). No readable incident history (5). The free plan allows 1 concurrent request and paid plans have no concurrency cap, with timeout settable from 5 to 60 seconds. No per-minute limits published (8 of 15). The errors page documents 409 for the concurrency limit and 423 for anti-bot detection with advice to retry or change settings. No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance (7 of 15). No SLA found (0). The API is generally available (10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Outcrawl | ScrapingAnt | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 45 | 30 | Outcrawl +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 71 | 43 | Outcrawl +28 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 66 | Outcrawl +17 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 66 | 10 | Outcrawl +56 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 5 | Outcrawl +74 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 56 | even |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **62.4 · B** | **35.8 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Outcrawl | ScrapingAnt |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Aeonmind LLC (Outcrawl) | ScrapingAnt (DATAANT) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.outcrawl.ai/v1` | `https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable 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 | 3 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-20 | 2024-07-16 |
| 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 | 90 npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |

## How the scores have moved

### Outcrawl

No score change since it was listed.

### ScrapingAnt

- +0.3 on 27 October 2026: checklist
- -0.4 on 8 October 2026: checklist

## 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.

**ScrapingAnt.** 10,000 free credits a month with no card. API Basics puts the key in the query string, so it lands in logs.

## Before you call either

### Outcrawl

1. Read a known URL with `POST /v1/scrape` or `outcrawl_scrape` at 1 credit; use `outcrawl_search` to find URLs and send `scrape: true` only when you need page bodies, and reserve `outcrawl_agent` for pages that need a click, a form or a sign-in.
2. Always send `caps.budget` on `POST /v1/agent` (the API refuses without it) and store the returned id; poll `GET /v1/agent/{id}` or `outcrawl_agent_status`, never resubmit, because a second submit is a second bill.
3. Branch on `error.code`, not `message`. Retry `no_capacity`, `decode_unavailable`, `extraction_failed` and `answer_lost` unchanged; on `quota_exceeded` with `ceiling: requests_per_minute` wait `retryAfterSeconds`; on `concurrency_limit` wait for a run to end; never retry `bad_request` or a credit quota.
4. Set `limit` on 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}/results` with the cursor.
5. Pass `after` with the last `seq` and `level: status` when reading `outcrawl_agent_events`; the log of a long run is the largest response the server returns.
6. Pass `maxAge: 0` when 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, `data` and download links as untrusted data; download URLs work for an hour with no key.

### ScrapingAnt

1. Send the key in the `x-api-key` header rather than the query string
2. Use `/v2/markdown` for LLM input, and set `browser=false` on static pages to pay 1 credit instead of 10
3. Switch to `proxy_type=residential` only after a 423 (anti-bot) response. It raises a browser request from 10 to 125 credits
4. On the free plan a second concurrent request gets 409. Wait for the first to finish
5. Google, Bing and Yandex result pages come back as raw HTML through `/v2/general`, so you parse them yourself

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Outcrawl or ScrapingAnt?

Outcrawl scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against ScrapingAnt's 35.8 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Outcrawl and ScrapingAnt need an API key?

Outcrawl takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. ScrapingAnt needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Outcrawl and ScrapingAnt without installing anything?

Yes. Outcrawl has a hosted endpoint at https://api.outcrawl.ai/v1 and ScrapingAnt at https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Outcrawl or ScrapingAnt

- [Apify MCP Server vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Bright Data vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Bright Data vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Context.dev vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/context-dev-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Context.dev vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/context-dev-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [jevcrawl vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jevcrawl-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Jina Reader vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Jina Reader vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Olostep vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Olostep vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Scrape.do](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrape-do.md)
- [Outcrawl vs ScrapeGraphAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapegraphai.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Scrapeless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapeless.md)
- [Outcrawl vs ScraperAPI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scraperapi.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Scrapewise](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapewise.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Outcrawl vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [Outcrawl vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-zyte.md)
- [Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Scrape.do vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrape-do-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [ScrapeGraphAI vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapegraphai-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Scrapeless vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [ScraperAPI vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scraperapi-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Scrapewise vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapewise-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Scrapfly vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [ScrapingAnt vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [ScrapingAnt vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [ScrapingAnt vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [ScrapingAnt vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-zenrows.md)
- [ScrapingAnt vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-zyte.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Diffbot vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Diffbot vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Outcrawl vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-qovia.md)
- [Outcrawl vs ScrapeAtlas](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/outcrawl-vs-scrapeatlas.md)
- [Qovia vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [ScrapeAtlas vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeatlas-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [jevcrawl vs Outcrawl](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jevcrawl-vs-outcrawl.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapingant.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp