Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run

Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs Zyte API

Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Oxylabs Web Scraper API's 63 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Oxylabs Web Scraper API leads on agent ergonomics. Both do scraping.

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

  • Agent ergonomics, 79 against 72

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

Zyte API B

Good for An agent or pipeline that fetches protected pages and wants the service to choose proxy and browser per site and to bill only success, and teams already on Scrapy.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 85 against 80
  • Schema & documentation, 85 against 68
  • Maintenance & community, 77 against 72

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Oxylabs Web Scraper API loses 3 points for them

Watch for

Request price depends on the target site's tier, from $0.13 to $1.27 per 1,000 HTTP requests and $1.01 to $16.08 with a browser on pay-as-you-go

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runOxylabs Web Scraper APIZyte APIEdge
Reliability16%208085Zyte API +5
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26885Zyte API +17
Agent ergonomics13%16.27972Oxylabs Web Scraper API +7
Security & auth14%17.55355Zyte API +2
Payments & pricing10%12.54040even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87277Zyte API +5
Transparency & trust7%8.86366Zyte API +3
Negative events≤15-30
Total63 · B69.7 · B

Facts side by side

FactOxylabs Web Scraper APIZyte API
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
Vendoroxylabs, UABZyte Group Limited
Hosted endpointhttps://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/querieshttps://api.zyte.com/v1/extract
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per usePay per use
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under the Oxylabs General Conditions. The MCP server and the Python SDK on GitHub are MITProprietary service under Zyte's terms of service. The Python client is BSD 3-Clause, and the Agentic Web Data plugin is under Zyte's own end-user licence
Tools exposed1034
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.oxylabs/oxylabs-mcpnot listed
Last release2026-09-072026-10-05
Terms last updated2026-10-052026-09-22
Privacy policy last updated2024-10-142024-08-30
Customer content may train modelsyesyes
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingyesnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity18k PyPI/wk42k PyPI/wk

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.

Zyte API

One POST endpoint with an OpenAPI 3 contract picks proxies, browser rendering and extraction per site, bills only successful responses, and sends problem+json errors with Retry-After. Prices vary by target site across five tiers, so cost per request isn't known before the site is assigned one, and no dated API changelog was found.

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

Zyte API

  1. Send the API key as the Basic auth username with an empty password to https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract. Set only one of httpResponseBody or browserHtml, or one extraction field
  2. Ask for httpResponseBody before browserHtml. Browser requests cost about eight to thirteen times more per tier
  3. Retry 429, 503 and 520 after the Retry-After seconds, with backoff. They aren't billed. Don't retry 400, 401, 422 or 451
  4. Read statusCode in a 200 response. A target site's 404 comes back as a successful, billed Zyte API response
  5. Have the owner set a blocking spending limit on the key you use. A 403 /auth/account-suspended means the limit or the trial month ended

Questions

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

Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against Oxylabs Web Scraper API's 63 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Oxylabs Web Scraper API leads on agent ergonomics.

Do Oxylabs Web Scraper API and Zyte API need an API key?

Oxylabs Web Scraper API needs an API key. Zyte API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

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

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

Other comparisons with Oxylabs Web Scraper API or Zyte API

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