# Scrapeless vs ScrapingAnt

> Scrapeless has a score of 54.3 (C) against ScrapingAnt's 35.9 (F). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 76 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-scrapingant
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-scrapingant.md (~1,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-scrapingant.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-scrapingant.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: 2026-10-05

Scrapeless has a score of 54.3 (C) against ScrapingAnt's 35.9 (F). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 76 points.

- Scrapeless: grade C, 54.3/100, rank #326 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapeless.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapeless.json
- ScrapingAnt: grade F, 35.9/100, rank #440 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapingant.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapingant.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Scrapeless for reliability (+45), schema & documentation (+23), security & auth (+25), maintenance & community (+76).

Pick ScrapingAnt for agent ergonomics (+16), payments & pricing (+5).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Scrapeless | ScrapingAnt | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 30 | Scrapeless +45 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 43 | Scrapeless +23 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 50 | 66 | ScrapingAnt +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 35 | 10 | Scrapeless +25 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 40 | ScrapingAnt +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 5 | Scrapeless +76 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 57 | ScrapingAnt +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.3 · C** | **35.9 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Scrapeless | ScrapingAnt |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Scrapeless (NST Labs Tech) | ScrapingAnt (DATAANT) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.scrapeless.com` | `https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 25 | 3 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.github.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-16 | 2024-07-16 |
| Popularity | 169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk | 90 npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Scrapeless.** Hosted streamable HTTP MCP at api.scrapeless.com/mcp with header auth, plus a stdio package, both in the official MCP registry. llms.txt quotes Deep SerpApi at $0.1 per 1,000 while the plan data charges $1 per 1,000 for Google Search.

**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

### 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. Crawls are asynchronous. Call crawl_start, then poll crawl_result with the returned id
5. Set SCRAPELESS_API_KEY for the stdio server. Older guides use SCRAPELESS_KEY, which still works as a fallback

### ScrapingAnt

1. Send the key in the `x-api-key` header rather than the query string
2. Use `/v2/markdown` for LLM input, and set `browser=false` on static pages to pay 1 credit instead of 10
3. Switch to `proxy_type=residential` only after a 423 (anti-bot) response. It raises a browser request from 10 to 125 credits
4. On the free plan a second concurrent request gets 409. Wait for the first to finish
5. Google, Bing and Yandex result pages come back as raw HTML through `/v2/general`, so you parse them yourself

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