Head to head · Extraction · October 2026 research run
Qovia vs ScrapingAnt
Qovia scores 61.2 (C) on agent readiness against ScrapingAnt's 35.8 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingAnt leads on transparency & trust. 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
- Reliability, 40 against 30
- Schema & documentation, 86 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 66
- Security & auth, 60 against 10
- Payments & pricing, 55 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 5
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
Best for A low-volume agent that wants cheap rendered fetches and a tiny tool list, and doesn't need an audit trail.
Ahead on
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 30
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
API Basics puts the key in the query string, so it lands in logs
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.
Maintenance & community Qovia +72
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.
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 Qovia +50
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.
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 Qovia +43
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.
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).
Transparency & trust ScrapingAnt +26
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.
ScrapingAnt 56
Closed service with terms naming DATAANT SP. Z O.O., registered in Poland (KRS 0000848755). The SDKs are Apache 2.0 (15 of 30). The privacy policy, last updated 3 November 2020, gives 12-month retention after an account closes, names processors and mentions DPAs with clients. It predates the MCP server and AI extractor, and doesn't say whether scraped content is stored (18 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0). Processors and locations named, Sendgrid in Ireland, Paddle in the UK, Google Analytics and Amazon hosting in the USA (15 of 20).
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.
ScrapingAnt 40
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Credit costs per request type (1 to 125) and plan prices are public (20). 10,000 free credits a month, no card (20). A person signs up in a browser (0).
Agent ergonomics Qovia +11
Qovia 77
API reading. Responses come in fixed page sizes per endpoint, from about 5 comments on Xiaohongshu to 100 Fliggy reviews, with limit only on Bilibili danmaku and no field selection; the record shape is compact and shared across posts, notes and videos. The MCP server loads four tools by default, keeps the catalogue out of context until search_endpoints and get_endpoint are called, and ?tools= selects platforms or everything, which on the MCP reading would score 25 (18 of 25). Cursor pagination with has_more on most lists, search_id on Douyin and Zhihu search, page numbers on Weibo, Xiaohongshu and Bilibili, sort options on several, and the cross-platform search filters by platform, content type, sentiment and whole-day date windows up to 90 days (17 of 20). One error object with 20 codes, request_id on every answer, the retryable set marked, refunded codes separated from never-charged ones, and MCP tool errors carrying error.code, the HTTP status and retry_after_seconds (19 of 20). All calls are reads, failed and empty calls are refunded, Retry-After is declared and the Python client retries; no readOnlyHint or other annotation appears in the vendor's 28 October tools/list snapshot (14 of 20). One required parameter on 117 of 144 operations and defaults set on the server, but the only official SDK is the Python client; Node and curl are examples (9 of 15). 18+17+19+14+9 = 77.
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).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Qovia | ScrapingAnt | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 40 | 30 | Qovia +10 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 86 | 43 | Qovia +43 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 77 | 66 | Qovia +11 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 60 | 10 | Qovia +50 |
| 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 | 5 | Qovia +72 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 30 | 56 | ScrapingAnt +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 61.2/100 | F 35.8/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Qovia | ScrapingAnt |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Qovia | ScrapingAnt (DATAANT) |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.qovia.ai | https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API 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 | 3 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | ai.qovia/qovia | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-28 | 2024-07-16 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| 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 | 90 npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (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.
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
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.
ScrapingAnt
- Send the key in the
x-api-keyheader rather than the query string - Use
/v2/markdownfor LLM input, and setbrowser=falseon static pages to pay 1 credit instead of 10 - Switch to
proxy_type=residentialonly after a 423 (anti-bot) response. It raises a browser request from 10 to 125 credits - On the free plan a second concurrent request gets 409. Wait for the first to finish
- 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, Qovia or ScrapingAnt?
Qovia scores 61.2 (C) on agent readiness against ScrapingAnt's 35.8 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingAnt leads on transparency & trust.
Do Qovia and ScrapingAnt need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Qovia and ScrapingAnt without installing anything?
Yes. Qovia has a hosted endpoint at https://api.qovia.ai and ScrapingAnt at https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general.
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- ScrapingAnt vs ZenRows
- ScrapingAnt vs Zyte API
- Context.dev vs Qovia
- Diffbot vs Qovia
- Diffbot vs ScrapingAnt
- jevcrawl vs Qovia
- Olostep vs Qovia
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs Qovia
- Qovia vs ScrapeAtlas
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- Qovia vs Scrapingdog
- Qovia vs Spider
- Qovia vs ZenRows
- Qovia vs Zyte API
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/qovia-vs-scrapingant.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/qovia.json·/api/v1/tools/scrapingant.json - From a terminal
anchor compare qovia scrapingant(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "qovia", "b": "scrapingant"}at/mcp, no key