# Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs ScrapingBee

> Oxylabs Web Scraper API scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against ScrapingBee's 59.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingBee leads on maintenance & community. Both do scraping. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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

Oxylabs Web Scraper API scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against ScrapingBee's 59.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingBee leads on maintenance & community. Both do scraping.

- 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
- ScrapingBee: grade C, 59.2/100, rank #504 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapingbee.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapingbee.json

## Which one, for what

### 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 70
- Schema & documentation, 68 against 60
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 68
- Security & auth, 53 against 37

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

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

### ScrapingBee (C)

Good for: Agents that mix general scraping with ready-made Google, Amazon and YouTube endpoints and want spend capped per call.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 72

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

Watch for: remote-mcp.txt says the hosted MCP only takes the key as ?api_key= in its URL


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Oxylabs Web Scraper API | ScrapingBee | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 70 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 60 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 68 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 53 | 37 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +16 |
| 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) | 72 | 85 | ScrapingBee +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 63 | even |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63 · B** | **59.2 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Oxylabs Web Scraper API | ScrapingBee |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | oxylabs, UAB | ScrapingBee (Oxylabs group) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries` | `https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Oxylabs General Conditions. The MCP server and the Python SDK on GitHub are MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 10 | 18 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.oxylabs/oxylabs-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-11 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-05 | 2024-07-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-10-14 | 2024-07-15 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 18k PyPI/wk | 132 stars, 49k npm/wk, 72k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 4/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**ScrapingBee.** Dedicated Google, Amazon, Walmart, YouTube, ChatGPT and Gemini endpoints next to the general HTML API. remote-mcp.txt says the hosted MCP only takes the key as ?api_key= in its URL.

## Before you call either

### 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

### ScrapingBee

1. Send render_js=false for static pages and files. It cuts the cost from 5 credits to 1
2. Use mode=auto with max_cost=25 to stop it escalating to 75-credit stealth requests
3. Keep the MCP URL with ?api_key= out of logs and shared configs
4. Back off exponentially on 429 from the MCP, since its concurrency is shared across customers
5. Expect 404 and 410 from the target to be billed. Other failures aren't

## Questions

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

Oxylabs Web Scraper API scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against ScrapingBee's 59.2 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingBee leads on maintenance & community.

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

Both need an API key.

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

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


## For agents

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

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