# Scrapeless vs ZenRows

> ZenRows has a score of 75.1 (BB) against Scrapeless's 54.3 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 45 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-zenrows
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-zenrows.md (~1,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-zenrows.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-zenrows.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

ZenRows has a score of 75.1 (BB) against Scrapeless's 54.3 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 45 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
- ZenRows: grade BB, 75.1/100, rank #43 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zenrows.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zenrows.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Scrapeless for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

Pick ZenRows for reliability (+12), schema & documentation (+17), agent ergonomics (+29), security & auth (+6), payments & pricing (+45), maintenance & community (+6), transparency & trust (+19).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Scrapeless | ZenRows | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 87 | ZenRows +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 83 | ZenRows +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 50 | 79 | ZenRows +29 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 35 | 41 | ZenRows +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 80 | ZenRows +45 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 81 | 87 | ZenRows +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 75 | ZenRows +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -2 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **54.3 · C** | **75.1 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Scrapeless | ZenRows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Scrapeless (NST Labs Tech) | ZenRows |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.scrapeless.com` | `https://api.zenrows.com/v1/` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 25 | 44 |
| 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 | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server` | `io.github.ZenRows/zenrows-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-18 |
| Popularity | 169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk | 21 stars, 35k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 3.8/5 (8) |

## 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.

**ZenRows.** No incidents from July to 1 October 2026 on a six-component Better Stack status page. The Fetch API only takes the key in the query string.

## 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

### ZenRows

1. Start with mode=auto and let it escalate. Force js_render or premium_proxy only when you know the site needs it
2. Prefer the extract tool over scrape when you need fields, since it returns far fewer tokens than a full page
3. Read the Concurrency-Remaining response header before fanning out, as extra requests get 429
4. Set ZENROWS_AUTO_SIGNUP=false in stdio configs so a missing key fails loudly instead of creating an account

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