# Scrapfly vs ScrapingAnt

> Scrapfly has a score of 69.8 (B) against ScrapingAnt's 35.9 (F). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 79 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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

Scrapfly has a score of 69.8 (B) against ScrapingAnt's 35.9 (F). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 79 points.

- Scrapfly: grade B, 69.8/100, rank #107 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapfly.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapfly.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 Scrapfly for reliability (+20), schema & documentation (+52), agent ergonomics (+14), security & auth (+60), maintenance & community (+79), transparency & trust (+20).

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

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Scrapfly | ScrapingAnt | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 30 | Scrapfly +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 95 | 43 | Scrapfly +52 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 66 | Scrapfly +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 70 | 10 | Scrapfly +60 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 5 | Scrapfly +79 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 57 | Scrapfly +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.8 · B** | **35.9 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Scrapfly | ScrapingAnt |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Scrapfly (Joam Intelligence, LLC) | ScrapingAnt (DATAANT) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.scrapfly.io/scrape` | `https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 61 | 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.scrapfly.mcp/mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-08 | 2024-07-16 |
| Popularity | 14 stars, 21k npm/wk | 90 npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Scrapfly.** The error catalogue documents HTTP status, retry behaviour and billing for over 100 codes. The MCP server loads 61 tools at once.

**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

### Scrapfly

1. Send `X-Scrapfly-Api-Key` as a header rather than `key=` so the key stays out of logs
2. Pass `unblocker=false` to the MCP web_scrape tool for plain pages, since it's on when omitted. `asp` is the deprecated alias
3. Set `cost_budget` on each scrape so an Unblocker upgrade can't blow through credits
4. Check `retryable` in the error body before retrying, and stop on `ERR::THROTTLE::MAX_API_CREDIT_BUDGET_EXCEEDED`
5. Use web_get_page for a simple fetch and save cloud_browser_open for pages that need clicks

### 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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