Head to head · Extraction · October 2026 research run
Qovia vs Scrapfly
Scrapfly scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Qovia's 61.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Qovia leads on payments & pricing. Both do extraction.
Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents · All 261 scrapers comparisons
Which one, for what
Qovia C
Best for Agents that need structured public data from Chinese platforms (Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Weibo, Bilibili, Kuaishou, Zhihu, WeChat official accounts, Taobao and JD reviews) or the Xingtu and Pugongying creator marketplaces, with TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X and Reddit beside them, paid per successful call from a prepaid balance.
Ahead on
- Payments & pricing, 55 against 40
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where Scrapfly loses 3 points for them
Watch for
No status page, incident history or SLA; the terms promise nothing about uptime and the Python client is the only retry guidance beyond Retry-After
Scrapfly BB
Best for An agent that needs scrape, screenshot, extraction, crawl and a hosted browser from one key, with errors it can branch on.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 85 against 40
- Schema & documentation, 95 against 86
- Security & auth, 75 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 77
- Transparency & trust, 75 against 30
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
The open-source MCP server registers 62 tools at once, a heavy tools/list
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.
Reliability Scrapfly +45
Qovia 40
Hosted reading, for the REST API with the MCP server described. No public status page was found. https://qovia.ai/status/ answers 404, status.qovia.ai does not resolve and neither the docs nor the footer links one (0). No readable incident history, so 5 by the rubric (5). Limits are published with numbers on the quickstart's rate-limits section, 60 requests a minute per account before the first top-up and 600 after on a sliding 60-second window, with X-RateLimit-Limit and X-RateLimit-Remaining headers, a 64 KiB body cap, an empty-call throttle (50 calls in 10 minutes with over 80 per cent empty, not found or rejected) and a per-second cap per endpoint without a number (15). Retry-After is declared on too_many_auth_failures, rate_limited, too_many_unbilled, endpoint_busy and upstream_busy, the error table marks the retryable codes, the docs say a 503 endpoint_unavailable carries none and will not clear, and the Python client retries 429 and 503 honouring the header. Every operation is a read, including POST /v1/search, and a failed or timed-out call is refunded, so idempotency keys are not needed (15). No SLA. The terms summary says nothing about uptime and the pricing FAQ excludes outages, rate limits and platform changes from refunds; the 11 September 2026 archived home page advertised a 99.95 per cent enterprise SLA that the current pages have dropped (0). The endpoints are sold and labelled Live on the docs and coverage pages, but every one of the 143 carries x-qovia-status beta in the OpenAPI file, the API version is 0.1.0 and the MCP server reports 0.1.0 (5 of 10). 0+5+15+15+0+5 = 40.
Scrapfly 85
scrapfly.io/status answers with Statuspage's status JSON, which names its page as scrapfly.statuspage.io. That page has 25 components and incident history back to 2022, read through its history feed on 1 November. The 1 October check read only the overall state and found no history (20, was 10). The newest incident is a Scrapium rendering fault on 21 May 2026, so nothing is posted in the 90 days from 3 August (30, was 5). Concurrency per plan is published (5 on Discovery to 100 on Enterprise) and each project has a configurable per-minute throttle (15). The error catalogue marks every code retryable or not and has three ERR::THROTTLE codes, but we found no Retry-After header or backoff guidance on the errors or throttling pages (10 of 15). The terms disclaim uptime and no uptime SLA is published, and the pricing page's SLA mentions cover support response on Enterprise (0). The Scrape API is GA. Vault and alerting are beta, outside the main surface (10). 20+30+15+10+0+10 = 85.
Transparency & trust Scrapfly +45
Qovia 30
Closed service. The Terms of Service is one paragraph that names no legal entity, address or liability terms, says Delaware law governs and that the page is a summary with the signed agreement governing; the repository's client is MIT. Between the closed and unclear bands (7 of 30). The privacy policy is one paragraph. Account information is used to deliver and bill, personal information is not sold, requests and results are not resold, deletion requests go to the support mailbox, and the agreement governs where it differs. No retention periods, no subprocessors, no DPA, and no statement about the cache the prov.source flag implies; the SECURITY.md repeats the same points (8 of 30). A 410 endpoint_disabled code exists for retired endpoints and the changelog is dated, but there is no deprecation policy or notice period and nothing is marked deprecated (5 of 20). Stripe is named on the pricing page as the card and Alipay processor; no other provider, data location or transfer basis is stated (3 of 20). 7+8+5+3 = 23.
Scrapfly 75
Closed service with terms updated 2026-09-30 under US law. SDKs are BSD 2-Clause, and the MCP source is public with no LICENSE file and ISC in package.json (15 of 30). Privacy policy updated 14 May 2026 with a published DPA and HIPAA BAA, but retention is as long as necessary, and the retention of scraped content isn't stated (18 of 30). Release notes date deprecations and removals, for example Scrapium v153 dropping legacy network interception on 11 September. No standing deprecation policy found (15 of 20). Stripe, Google Analytics, Google Ads and Google Cloud are named, with SCC and Data Privacy Framework transfers, but there's no full subprocessor list (10 of 20). The release notes still date each CDP removal, most recently Storage.getRelatedWebsiteSets in Scrapium v156 on 26 October. Not otherwise re-read on 1 November. 15+18+15+10 = 58.
Security & auth Scrapfly +15
Qovia 60
API keys with scopes chosen at creation (every endpoint, search, every raw endpoint or one of 24 platform groups), an optional expiry, revocation in the console and hashed storage; the docs say the key is read from the Authorization or x-api-key header only, never the URL or a cookie, and 30 failed authentications from one IP in a minute are throttled. No OAuth and no rotation feature beyond creating another key (24 of 30). The whole surface is read-only retrieval, scopes restrict a key to platforms, the two MCP catalogue tools need no key, and the docs and SECURITY.md tell users to give AI tools a separate scoped key (17 of 20). Every response is third-party platform text, and the only related statement is that error messages never contain the data source's own text; nothing on treating returned content as untrusted (3 of 15). request_id is the usage record ID on every answer, the console lists every charge in a usage log, X-Qovia-Charged and X-Qovia-Balance headers report each call, and GET /v1/account returns the key's scopes and balance at no charge; no exportable audit log or per-call endpoint was found (11 of 15). No security.txt on qovia.ai or api.qovia.ai (404), no bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001; the repository's SECURITY.md names a Telegram handle and a mailbox for reports covering both hosts (5 of 20). 24+17+3+11+5 = 60.
Scrapfly 75
OAuth 2 on the hosted MCP with dashboard revocation, open to all plans. API keys are per project, live or test, and since 15 April 2026 can be restricted to products (30). The canonical API form puts the key in the key query parameter and the MCP also accepts ?key=, so less 10 (20 of 30). Product-restricted keys, confirm=true on every mutating vault and alert tool, info_api_key off in server-key mode, and the self-hosted HTTP server binds loopback by default. Since v1.4.0 Cloud Browser sessions are scoped to the API key that opened them (15 of 20). The source gates mutating vault tools behind a preview step because prompt injection can reach them and redacts keys from CDP URLs. We found no user-facing guidance on untrusted page content (8 of 15). Monitoring shows every call as a log with its error, credit cost line by line and Unblocker state, with replay, per the 24 October release notes, as well as per-domain metrics and alerting. The 1 October check couldn't confirm per-request logs (15, was 10). security.txt valid until 30 April 2027, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and HIPAA claims on the pricing page, and a public SOC 3 report since 21 April 2026. No bug bounty found (17 of 20). 20+15+8+15+17 = 75.
Payments & pricing Qovia +15
Qovia 55
No x402, MPP or L402 on Qovia's own endpoints; USDT on TRC-20 is a top-up method from a console session, not a machine payment protocol. The vendor's five Actors on the Apify Store under the profile qovia (Qovia Data, the same Telegram handle and mailbox as the site), such as the Xingtu Actor at $0.01 to $0.06 a section, can be paid through Apify, whose prepaid token is sold over x402, so partial credit for a third-party route on part of the catalogue (10 of 40). Per-call prices are published without a login, per endpoint in the OpenAPI file, llms.txt and the docs, search at $5 and raw endpoints from $0.5 to $19.5 per 1,000, with the tier rule and payment fees stated (20). 50 trial calls for a new account, counted only when a call returns data; the quickstart says to top up when they run out and the docs ask for no card at sign-up, though no account was created to confirm it (20). A person signs up in a browser and creates a key; the MCP catalogue tools work without a key but data calls do not, and the Apify route reaches four platforms without a Qovia account (5 of 20). 10+20+20+5 = 55.
Scrapfly 40
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Credit costs per request type (1 datacentre, 5 with rendering or Unblocker, 25 residential, 60 full-page screenshot) and plan prices are public. Unblocker surcharges per target aren't published, but cost_budget caps them (20). 1,000 free credits, no card, no time limit (20). A person signs up in a browser. OAuth still needs an account (0). Plan prices and the 1,000 free credits with no card re-read on the pricing page on 1 November. 0+20+20+0 = 40.
Schema & documentation Scrapfly +9
Qovia 86
An OpenAPI 3.1.0 file (version 0.1.0, 1 MB) is public at qovia.ai/openapi.json with 144 paths and 144 operations, two security schemes, typed query parameters, a response example on every operation and the error responses declared on each. The data payload itself is typed only as object, array or null with per-endpoint examples, and the MCP call_endpoint tool takes a free params object, so 22 of 25 (22). llms.txt (75 KB, one line per endpoint with price and status) and llms-full.txt (331 KB, the whole documentation as text) are served, and the quickstart's billing, limits and error sections are in both (10). Every operation has a summary and a description; most say what the data holds, how to page, which ids to pass, which fields are unavailable and what answers 404 or empty, and the MCP server's instructions say to find, read then call. Guidance on when not to use an endpoint is thin, mostly pointers such as replies coming from another endpoint (16 of 20). 321 parameters, 75 with enums, patterns on ids, min and max on strings and integers, 117 operations with one required parameter and 16 with none, the POST body typed with additionalProperties false, and unknown parameters rejected with 400 (14 of 15). A response example on all 144 operations, 20 error codes with every message variant listed, response headers documented per error, and cURL, Python, JavaScript and raw HTTP samples; the examples are catalogue samples the docs say are not live data (14 of 15). Paths are under /v1, a 410 endpoint_disabled code exists for retired endpoints, and the changelog is dated, but it has two days (21 and 22 October 2026), nothing is marked deprecated and no notice period is stated (10 of 15). 22+10+16+14+14+10 = 86.
Scrapfly 95
A Swagger reference per the 30 September check, and the MCP server exposes it as a web_scraping_openapi_specification resource. Every MCP tool has JSON Schema inputs generated from typed Go structs (25). llms.txt and Markdown twins such as pricing.md per the 30 September check. robots.txt still disallows /docs/llms.txt and the .md twins for crawlers it doesn't name, so they weren't re-read on 1 November (10). Descriptions say when to use a tool and when to switch, for example web_get_page falls back to web_scrape for tuning and to cloud_browser_open for interaction. A few are long and steer the model's next step (17 of 20). Typed inputs with enums, for example the vault service discriminator, and required fields (13 of 15). Error catalogue of 100+ ERR:: codes, each with HTTP status, retryable and billed flags and its own doc link (15). Dated release notes, newest 26 October 2026 (15). 25+10+17+13+15+15 = 95.
Maintenance & community Scrapfly +7
Qovia 77
The newest changes are the registry entry ai.qovia/qovia 0.1.1 and the repository's tools snapshot and plugin manifests on 28 October 2026, after the Python client 0.1.1 on PyPI on 27 October; the repository was pushed on 1 November (30). Eight changelog entries on 21 and 22 October, two registry versions (22 and 28 October) and two PyPI releases (25 and 27 October) are more than three dated entries in 90 days, all within ten days (20). Closed service with a public changelog. Support is Telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat and one mailbox, with a one-business-day reply promised for email; GitHub issues are enabled on the repository with none opened, and no forum, Discord or community was found (7 of 15). ai.qovia/qovia is in the official MCP registry under a DNS-verified reverse-DNS namespace at 0.1.1, marked latest, and the Python client is an official package on PyPI (15). The client is standard-library Python with a test file, MIT, no dependencies and no CI workflow in the repository tree; the account's other nine repositories are forks of lists and directories (5 of 10). 30+20+7+15+5 = 77.
Scrapfly 84
Scrapium v156 in the release notes on 26 October 2026 and MCP v1.4.0 on 15 October (30). MCP tags v1.3.1 to v1.3.3 (26 and 27 August), v1.3.4 (8 September) and v1.4.0 (15 October), SDKs 0.12.0 on 8 September, and dated release notes on 14, 24 and 26 August, 11, 23 and 25 September, 7, 24 and 26 October (20). Dated release notes most weeks and a support address. We couldn't read GitHub issues, since github.com refuses our reader (12 of 25). In the official MCP registry as io.scrapfly.mcp/mcp under the vendor's domain, though the entry still lists 1.0.0, and the SDKs are current (15). MCP moved to Go 1.27 on 23 October. Its CI runs only a reference check and the npm publish, while the TypeScript SDK runs tests in CI (7 of 10). 30+20+12+15+7 = 84.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Qovia | Scrapfly | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 85 | Scrapfly +45 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 86 | 95 | Scrapfly +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 77 | 80 | Scrapfly +3 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 60 | 75 | Scrapfly +15 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 55 | 40 | Qovia +15 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 77 | 84 | Scrapfly +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 30 | 75 | Scrapfly +45 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | C 61.2/100 | BB 74.5/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Qovia | Scrapfly |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Qovia | Scrapfly (Joam Intelligence, LLC) |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.qovia.ai | https://api.scrapfly.io/scrape |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under a one-paragraph Terms of Service summary that defers to a signed agreement. The qovia/qovia-mcp repository (setup guide, examples, Python client) and the qovia package on PyPI are MIT; the service's source is not public | none |
| Tools exposed | 141 | 62 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | ai.qovia/qovia | io.scrapfly.mcp/mcp |
| Last release | 2026-10-28 | 2026-10-15 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | 2026-09-30 |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | 2026-05-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 0 stars | 14 stars, 21k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 4/5 (2) |
How the scores have moved
Qovia
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Qovia
An OpenAPI 3.1 file with 144 operations, one envelope and 20 error codes, per-endpoint prices with failed and empty calls refunded, scoped keys and a four-tool MCP server that keeps the catalogue out of context. No status page, no legal entity, one-paragraph terms and privacy pages, and a product ten days old at the check.
Scrapfly
The error catalogue documents HTTP status, retry behaviour and billing for over 100 codes, and the Statuspage history shows no incident since May 2026. The MCP server loads 62 tools at once, and the API's canonical form puts the key in the URL.
Before you call either
Qovia
- Send
Authorization: Bearer sk-qovia-...to https://api.qovia.ai and checkmeta.emptyon every HTTP 200;datamay benullor an empty structure and nothing is charged for it. - Branch on
error.code, never onmessage. Retry onlyrate_limited,too_many_unbilled,endpoint_busy,upstream_busyandtoo_many_auth_failuresafterRetry-After;endpoint_unavailablehas none and will not clear. - Stay under 60 requests a minute (600 after the first top-up) across every key on the account, and keep empty or not-found calls under 80 per cent of the last 10 minutes or expect 429
too_many_unbilled. - Pass the previous page's
cursor(andsearch_idon Douyin and Zhihu search) back unchanged and stop whenhas_moreis false; each page is a separate charge, and unknown parameters answer 400. - For MCP, connect to https://api.qovia.ai/mcp over Streamable HTTP; call
search_endpointsthenget_endpointbeforecall_endpoint, or add?tools=douyin,kuaishoufor typed direct tools. Catalogue tools need no key.
Scrapfly
- Send
X-Scrapfly-Api-Keyas a header rather thankey=so the key stays out of logs - Pass
unblocker=falseto the MCP web_scrape tool for plain pages, since it's on when omitted.aspis the deprecated alias - Set
cost_budgeton each scrape so an Unblocker upgrade can't blow through credits - Check
retryablein the error body before retrying, and stop onERR::THROTTLE::MAX_API_CREDIT_BUDGET_EXCEEDED - Use web_get_page for a simple fetch and save cloud_browser_open for pages that need clicks
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Qovia or Scrapfly?
Scrapfly scores 74.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Qovia's 61.2 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Qovia leads on payments & pricing.
Do Qovia and Scrapfly need an API key?
Qovia needs an API key. Scrapfly takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Qovia and Scrapfly without installing anything?
Yes. Qovia has a hosted endpoint at https://api.qovia.ai and Scrapfly at https://api.scrapfly.io/scrape.
Other comparisons with Qovia or Scrapfly
- Bright Data vs Qovia
- Firecrawl MCP vs Qovia
- Bright Data vs Scrapfly
- Context.dev vs Scrapfly
- Jina Reader vs Scrapfly
- Olostep vs Scrapfly
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs Scrapfly
- Scrape.do vs Scrapfly
- ScrapeGraphAI vs Scrapfly
- Scrapeless vs Scrapfly
- ScraperAPI vs Scrapfly
- Scrapewise vs Scrapfly
- Scrapfly vs ScrapingAnt
- Scrapfly vs ScrapingBee
- Scrapfly vs Scrapingdog
- Scrapfly vs Spider
- Scrapfly vs ZenRows
- Scrapfly vs Zyte API
- Context.dev vs Qovia
- Diffbot vs Qovia
- Diffbot vs Scrapfly
- jevcrawl vs Qovia
- Olostep vs Qovia
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs Qovia
- Qovia vs ScrapeAtlas
- Qovia vs ScrapeGraphAI
- Qovia vs ScraperAPI
- Qovia vs Scrapewise
- Qovia vs ScrapingAnt
- Qovia vs ScrapingBee
- Qovia vs Scrapingdog
- Qovia vs Spider
- Qovia vs ZenRows
- Qovia vs Zyte API
- ScrapeAtlas vs Scrapfly
- Apify MCP Server vs Scrapfly
- jevcrawl vs Scrapfly
- Firecrawl MCP vs Scrapfly
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/qovia-vs-scrapfly.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/qovia.json·/api/v1/tools/scrapfly.json - From a terminal
anchor compare qovia scrapfly(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "qovia", "b": "scrapfly"}at/mcp, no key