# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-zyte
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-zyte.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-zyte.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-zyte.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

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.

- 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
- Zyte API: grade B, 69.7/100, rank #166 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zyte.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zyte.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:
- 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

| Category | Weight | Oxylabs Web Scraper API | Zyte API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 85 | Zyte API +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 85 | Zyte API +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 72 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 53 | 55 | Zyte API +2 |
| 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 | 77 | Zyte API +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 66 | Zyte API +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63 · B** | **69.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Oxylabs Web Scraper API | Zyte API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | oxylabs, UAB | Zyte Group Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries` | `https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Oxylabs General Conditions. The MCP server and the Python SDK on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary 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 exposed | 10 | 34 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.oxylabs/oxylabs-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-07 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-05 | 2026-09-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-10-14 | 2024-08-30 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | yes |
| 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 | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 18k PyPI/wk | 42k 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.


## For agents

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

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