# Qovia vs Scrapingdog

> Qovia scores 61.2 (C) to Scrapingdog's 39.3 (E) for extraction. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapingdog
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapingdog.md (~5,900 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-01

Qovia scores 61.2 (C) on agent readiness against Scrapingdog's 39.3 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Scrapingdog leads on reliability and transparency & trust. Both do extraction.

- Qovia: grade C, 61.2/100, rank #558 of 1253. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qovia.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/qovia.json
- Scrapingdog: grade E, 39.3/100, rank #1135 of 1253. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapingdog.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapingdog.json
- Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.md
- All 261 scrapers comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/web-scrapers/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Qovia (C)

Good 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:
- Schema & documentation, 86 against 43
- Agent ergonomics, 77 against 44
- Security & auth, 60 against 5
- Payments & pricing, 55 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 45

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`

### Scrapingdog (E)

Good for: A budget agent that wants parsed Google, Amazon or LinkedIn results and can keep the key out of logs.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 62 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 56 against 30

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: API key only travels in the URL query string


## Why the edge

### Security & auth: Qovia +55

- 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.
- Scrapingdog (5): One account key with no scopes, and we found no rotation or revocation docs (10). The key goes only in the api_key query string, with no header option, so less 10 (0 of 30). No read-only mode or least-privilege key. The API only reads third-party pages, so there are no destructive account actions (5 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance in the docs or the MCP README (0 of 15). No request log or per-call audit found (0 of 15). No security.txt per the 30 September check, and no 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.
- Scrapingdog (43): No OpenAPI spec found. The MCP builds typed zod inputs for 35 tools from a declarative registry, and ai_extract_rules is a JSON string (12 of 25). llms.txt per the 30 September check (10). MCP descriptions say what each endpoint does but not when to avoid it, and the web_scrape tool tells the model the API default for dynamic is false while the docs say rendering is on by default (10 of 20). Booleans, numbers and strings with few enums, plus the JSON-string field (9 of 15). Code examples on each docs page and 8 documented status codes (12 of 15). No changelog and no versioned API paths found (0).

### Agent ergonomics: Qovia +33

- 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.
- Scrapingdog (44): 35 MCP tools with no toolsets or subsets (5 of 25). markdown=true, ai_query and parsed JSON endpoints for Google, Amazon and LinkedIn keep responses smaller. No documented pagination or size limits on the raw scrape (12 of 20). 8 HTTP status codes with meanings, and the MCP passes the status and body back (12 of 20). Failed requests aren't billed, but no tool annotations or idempotency guidance (5 of 20). Only url is required, but rendering defaults on at 5 credits and the MCP describes it as off. Node and Python SDKs (10 of 15).

### Maintenance & community: Qovia +32

- 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.
- Scrapingdog (45): The SDKs and MCP server were first published on 31 July and 1 August 2026, 61 days ago. No API changelog or later release found (20). Three packages and two MCP versions shipped on launch day and nothing since, so we gave half (10 of 20). We couldn't read GitHub issues. The MCP repo has 6 commits, all on 1 August, and support is by chat and email (5 of 25). The MCP is in the official registry under the personal namespace io.github.Darshan972, though the vendor's SDK page links it as its own. SDKs are current (8 of 15). No CI, tests or tags in the MCP repo (2 of 10).

### Transparency & trust: Scrapingdog +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.
- Scrapingdog (56): Closed service with terms revised 13 January 2026, naming OpenData Labs Private Limited under the laws of Rajasthan, India, with no postal address. The MCP is MIT (15 of 30). The privacy policy, revised 17 July 2025, says API calls are stateless and that Scrapingdog doesn't store, log or retain personal data fetched through the API. A DPA is published. No retention periods for account data (22 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0). No processors or data locations named (0 of 20).

### Reliability: Scrapingdog +22

- 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.
- Scrapingdog (62): UptimeRobot status page linked from the footer per the 30 September check. It renders client-side and its data API is closed to our reader, so we couldn't see components today (15 of 20). No readable incident history (5). Concurrency per plan is published, 1 on Free up to 2,200 on the top plan (15). Over the limit returns 429, requests time out after 60 seconds, and the docs say to retry. Failures aren't billed. No Retry-After found (10 of 15). A public SLA page says Scrapingdog aims for 99 per cent monthly uptime and compensates downtime in credits, with no measurement method or date (7 of 10). Generally available (10).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Qovia | Scrapingdog | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 40 | 62 | Scrapingdog +22 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 43 | Qovia +43 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 77 | 44 | Qovia +33 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 60 | 5 | Qovia +55 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 55 | 40 | Qovia +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 45 | Qovia +32 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 30 | 56 | Scrapingdog +26 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **61.2 · C** | **39.3 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Qovia | Scrapingdog |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Qovia | Scrapingdog (OpenData Labs) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.qovia.ai` | `https://api.scrapingdog.com/scrape` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| 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 | 35 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `ai.qovia/qovia` | `io.github.Darshan972/scrapingdog-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-28 | 2026-07-31 |
| Terms last updated | not read yet | 2026-01-13 |
| Privacy policy last updated | not read yet | 2025-07-17 |
| 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 | 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 | 0 stars, 41 npm/wk, 12 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |

## How the scores have moved

### Qovia

No score change since it was listed.

### Scrapingdog

- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist
- -0.1 on 8 October 2026: checklist

## 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.

**Scrapingdog.** A plain request is 1 credit, about $0.20 per 1,000 on Lite. API key only travels in the URL query string.

## Before you call either

### Qovia

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer sk-qovia-...` to https://api.qovia.ai and check `meta.empty` on every HTTP 200; `data` may be `null` or an empty structure and nothing is charged for it.
2. Branch on `error.code`, never on `message`. Retry only `rate_limited`, `too_many_unbilled`, `endpoint_busy`, `upstream_busy` and `too_many_auth_failures` after `Retry-After`; `endpoint_unavailable` has none and will not clear.
3. 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`.
4. Pass the previous page's `cursor` (and `search_id` on Douyin and Zhihu search) back unchanged and stop when `has_more` is false; each page is a separate charge, and unknown parameters answer 400.
5. For MCP, connect to https://api.qovia.ai/mcp over Streamable HTTP; call `search_endpoints` then `get_endpoint` before `call_endpoint`, or add `?tools=douyin,kuaishou` for typed direct tools. Catalogue tools need no key.

### Scrapingdog

1. Add dynamic=false unless the page needs JavaScript. It cuts the cost from 5 credits to 1, whatever the MCP description says
2. Keep request URLs out of logs, since they carry api_key
3. Set client timeouts above 60 seconds and retry on 429 or timeout. Failures aren't billed
4. Prefer the parsed endpoints (Google, Amazon) over scraping the raw page when one exists

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Qovia or Scrapingdog?

Qovia scores 61.2 (C) on agent readiness against Scrapingdog's 39.3 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Scrapingdog leads on reliability and transparency & trust.

### Do Qovia and Scrapingdog need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Qovia and Scrapingdog without installing anything?

Yes. Qovia has a hosted endpoint at https://api.qovia.ai and Scrapingdog at https://api.scrapingdog.com/scrape.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Qovia or Scrapingdog

- [Bright Data vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-qovia.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-qovia.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Bright Data vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Context.dev vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/context-dev-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [jevcrawl vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jevcrawl-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Jina Reader vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Olostep vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Scrape.do vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrape-do-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [ScrapeGraphAI vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapegraphai-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Scrapeless vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [ScraperAPI vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scraperapi-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Scrapewise vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapewise-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Scrapfly vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [ScrapingAnt vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [ScrapingBee vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Scrapingdog vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingdog-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [Scrapingdog vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingdog-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Scrapingdog vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingdog-vs-zyte.md)
- [Context.dev vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/context-dev-vs-qovia.md)
- [Diffbot vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-qovia.md)
- [Diffbot vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/diffbot-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [jevcrawl vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jevcrawl-vs-qovia.md)
- [Olostep vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-qovia.md)
- [Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs Qovia](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-qovia.md)
- [Qovia vs ScrapeAtlas](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapeatlas.md)
- [Qovia vs ScrapeGraphAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapegraphai.md)
- [Qovia vs ScraperAPI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scraperapi.md)
- [Qovia vs Scrapewise](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapewise.md)
- [Qovia vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Qovia vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Qovia vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Qovia vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [Qovia vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Qovia vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/qovia-vs-zyte.md)
- [ScrapeAtlas vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeatlas-vs-scrapingdog.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp