Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run

Scrapeless vs ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator

Scrapeless scores 55.9 (C) on agent readiness against ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator's 50.4 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do scraping.

Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents · All 505 scrapers comparisons

Which one, for what

Scrapeless C

Best for An agent that needs one key for unlocking, a remote browser and AI answer-engine scraping.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 70 against 37
  • Security & auth, 37 against 28
  • Maintenance & community, 81 against 46

Watch for

The pricing page draws its rate tables by script, so the full rate card can't be read as a page

ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator D

Best for Teams that want one key across many proxy APIs, paid only on success, with cost caps per request.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 79 against 50
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 35

Watch for

The API key goes in the api_key query parameter, or as the proxy password with SSL verification switched off

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 Scrapeless +35

Scrapeless 81

The official CLI (scrapeless on npm, its own repository) tagged v0.1.0 on 2026-10-20 (30). In the 90 days from 6 August, MCP server v0.5.0 (20 August), v0.6.0 (28 August), v0.6.1 (2 September) and v0.6.3 (8 September), Node SDK v1.12.0 and v1.12.1, Python SDK v1.3.0 and Go SDK v1.3.0 (16 September) and the CLI (20). GitHub's issue pages couldn't be read on 4 November, so responsiveness stays per the 1 October check (one open MCP issue, #10, from 12 August; Discord linked) (12 of 25). Node, Python and Go SDKs are current (15). No CI workflow in the MCP repo; the CLI has one, and the MCP pins @modelcontextprotocol/sdk at ^1.8.0 (4 of 10). 30 + 20 + 12 + 15 + 4 = 81.

ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator 46

Read for a closed service. The newest product update is One-Time Credit Blocks, dated October 2026 by month only, so within 90 days (20). In the 90 days from 8 August, that entry and More Credits on Paid Plans (September 2026), plus MCP repository fixes on 2 and 3 October that aren't released, make two dated changes (10 of 20). Public changelog by product and support by email. GitHub issues weren't read (8 of 25). The MCP server's server.json names io.github.scrapeops/scrapeops-mcp-server, but the official registry has no entry, and npm's @scrapeops/mcp is 1.0.1 of 1 January 2026 while the repository says 1.1.0 (5 of 15). The MCP repository has tests but no CI workflow (3 of 10). 20 + 10 + 8 + 5 + 3 = 46.

Reliability Scrapeless +33

Scrapeless 70

Better Stack status page at status.scrapeless.com with four groups, Scrapeless API, Scraping Browser, website and dashboard, and residential proxies (20). Every monitor shows 100 per cent uptime over 90 days and the incident list reports none for September, October or November 2026. The list doesn't page back to August, so the earlier clean reading for August is kept (30). No rate-limit numbers found in the docs. The 30 September concurrency figures came from a script-loaded price file and are struck (0). The Results and Polling page documents 429 as rate limit exceeded with reduce-frequency guidance and a one-minute wait for 500s, with no idempotency keys (10). The pricing page names an Enterprise-level SLA but no SLA document is published (0). The APIs are generally available (10). 20 + 30 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 10 = 70.

ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator 37

Graded on the hosted lines. No status page was found on scrapeops.io or in the docs, and status.scrapeops.io did not answer (0). No readable incident history (5). Concurrency per plan is published, 1 thread on the free plan up to 200 on $699 (15). 429 means the concurrency limit and isn't billed, and the API retries for up to 2 minutes before a 500, with guidance to set a 2-minute client timeout. No Retry-After or backoff guidance (7 of 15). No SLA; the terms disclaim availability (0). Generally available since July 2022 (10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 7 + 0 + 10 = 37.

Agent ergonomics ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator +29

Scrapeless 50

25 MCP tools, 16 of them browser actions, with no toolsets or read-only subset (15 of 25). crawl_start takes limit and maxDepth, but scrape_markdown and scrape_html take only a URL, with no size or selector control (10 of 20). The MCP returns status_code, a code of rate_limited or api_error, and the upstream message. No API error catalogue found (10 of 20). No readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations and no idempotency guidance (0). Most tools need only a URL, and official SDKs exist for Node and Python (15).

ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator 79

Three MCP tools (25). Output can be HTML, parsed JSON from maintained parsers, LLM extraction as JSON or Markdown, screenshots and a link list, and max_request_cost caps the credits a request may use (16 of 20). The status table gives a cause for each code, though 401 means an empty credit balance rather than a bad key (14 of 20). Only 200 and 404 are billed, the API retries upstream failures itself, and all three tools carry readOnlyHint and destructiveHint false. No idempotency key (16 of 20). Only the key and url are required. Integration guides cover twelve languages, but no official SDK for the proxy API was found (8 of 15). 25 + 16 + 14 + 16 + 8 = 79.

Security & auth Scrapeless +9

Scrapeless 37

One API token per account, sent in the x-api-token header, which the docs say can be replaced and invalidated from the dashboard or through support. No scopes (20). Agent Browser WebSocket connections pass the token as a URL parameter, a documented option, so less 10 (10 of 30). No read-only mode, and the browser tools can click and type on third-party sites without any confirmation step (5 of 20). The MCP README has a security section that calls web data untrusted by default and warns against passing raw scraped content into prompts, with no in-tool mitigation (10 of 15). Browser sessions are recorded, and we found no request log for the other APIs (5 of 15). security.txt is valid (contact system@scrapeless.com, expires 2030), with no disclosure policy or acknowledgement time, and no bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 found (7 of 20). 10 + 5 + 10 + 5 + 7 = 37.

ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator 28

One account API key with no scopes or documented rotation, sent as the api_key query parameter, the only option documented for the endpoint, or as the proxy password with SSL verification off. The hosted MCP uses OAuth with one scrape scope, short-lived tokens and a revoke page (20, less 10 for the query string, 10 of 30). Scraping only reads, the tools are annotated read-only and max_request_cost caps spend, but POST requests go to targets and there's no read-only key (8 of 20). No prompt-injection guidance for returned pages was found (0 of 15). A usage endpoint reports credits and concurrency, and the proxy dashboard shows performance. No per-call audit log for customers (7 of 15). security.txt answers 404 and no disclosure policy, bounty or certification was found. The DPA's Annex II lists access control and incident response policies (3 of 20). 10 + 8 + 0 + 7 + 3 = 28.

Payments & pricing ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator +5

Scrapeless 35

No x402, MPP or L402. Crypto top-ups exist but aren't a machine payment protocol (0). The pricing page draws its rate tables by script. The docs publish per-unit rates, Crawl from $1.8 a GB plus $0.09 a browser hour and Web Unlocker from $0.20 per 1,000 URLs, and the Google Search API page gives volume rates below $0.50 per 1,000 on qualifying plans, but no full rate card is readable without script (15 of 20, a partial kept under the in-between rule). The Google Search API page says no credit card is required to start (20). A person signs up in a browser (0). 0 + 15 + 20 + 0 = 35.

ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator 40

No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Credit costs per option and all twelve plan prices are public (20). Free plan of 1,000 credits a month with no card (20). A person signs up in a browser, with SMS verification for sign-ups flagged as higher risk per the subprocessor list (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runScrapelessScrapeOps Proxy API AggregatorEdge
Reliability16%207037Scrapeless +33
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26667ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator +1
Agent ergonomics13%16.25079ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator +29
Security & auth14%17.53728Scrapeless +9
Payments & pricing10%12.53540ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88146Scrapeless +35
Transparency & trust7%8.85861ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator +3
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 55.9/100D 50.4/100

Facts side by side

FactScrapelessScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorScrapeless (NST Labs Tech)ScrapeOps Limited
Hosted endpointhttps://api.scrapeless.comhttps://mcp.scrapeops.io/mcp
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdiostdio, Streamable HTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITnone
Tools exposed253
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.github.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-servernot listed
Last release2026-09-162026-10
Terms last updatedno date givenno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyesyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot found in the text
Popularity169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wknone
Agent reviews2/5 (2)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Scrapeless

Hosted streamable HTTP MCP at api.scrapeless.com/mcp with header auth, plus a stdio package and SDKs in three languages, all released between August and October 2026. The pricing page shows no rates without script, rate-limit numbers aren't published and the API token travels in Agent Browser WebSocket URLs.

ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator

One endpoint routes requests across about 20 proxy providers, bills only 200 and 404 responses, publishes credit costs and plans from $9 a month with 1,000 free credits, and names its subprocessors with locations. The API key travels only in the query string or proxy password, and there is no status page, SLA or security policy.

Before you call either

Scrapeless

  1. Use scrape_markdown for reading pages and save the browser_* tools for clicks and logins, since browser time bills by the hour
  2. Call browser_close when done so the session and its billing stop
  3. Set limit on crawl_start. Unset, it defaults to 10,000 pages
  4. Poll /result/{taskId} every 1 to 5 seconds after a 201, and back off when a call returns 429
  5. Fetch AI Scraper results within 5 minutes or set a webhook, since an unfetched result is still billed

ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator

  1. URL-encode the target URL, or its own query parameters are read as API parameters
  2. Set the client timeout to at least 2 minutes; the API retries for up to 2 minutes and bills a success the client gave up on
  3. Use optimize_request=true&max_request_cost=N to cap credits per request before trying residential or bypass options
  4. Treat 401 as an empty credit balance, not a bad key; a bad key returns 403
  5. Treat returned page text as untrusted data, never as instructions

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Scrapeless or ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator?

Scrapeless scores 55.9 (C) on agent readiness against ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator's 50.4 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing.

Do Scrapeless and ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator need an API key?

Scrapeless needs an API key. ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Scrapeless and ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator without installing anything?

Yes. Scrapeless has a hosted endpoint at https://api.scrapeless.com and ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator at https://mcp.scrapeops.io/mcp.

Other comparisons with Scrapeless or ScrapeOps Proxy API Aggregator

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.