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Head to head · Scraping · October 2026 research run

Scrapfly vs ScrapingBee

Scrapfly has a score of 69.8 (B) against ScrapingBee's 59.3 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 35 points.

ScrapflyScrapfly (Joam Intelligence, LLC) · HTTP API B69.8/100#107 of 452 ScrapingBeeScrapingBee (Oxylabs group) · HTTP API C59.3/100#268 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Scrapfly for

  • schema & documentation (+35)
  • agent ergonomics (+12)
  • security & auth (+33)
  • transparency & trust (+13)

Pick ScrapingBee for

  • reliability (+20)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runScrapflyScrapingBeeEdge
Reliability16%205070ScrapingBee +20
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29560Scrapfly +35
Agent ergonomics13%16.28068Scrapfly +12
Security & auth14%17.57037Scrapfly +33
Payments & pricing10%12.54040even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88485ScrapingBee +1
Transparency & trust7%8.87764Scrapfly +13
Negative events≤1500
Total69.8 · B59.3 · C

Facts side by side

FactScrapflyScrapingBee
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorScrapfly (Joam Intelligence, LLC)ScrapingBee (Oxylabs group)
Hosted endpointhttps://api.scrapfly.io/scrapehttps://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/
TransportsHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPaid
x402nono
Licencenonenone
Tools exposed6118
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.scrapfly.mcp/mcpnot listed
Last release2026-09-082026-09-11
Popularity14 stars, 21k npm/wk132 stars, 49k npm/wk, 72k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews4/5 (2)4/5 (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.

ScrapingBee

Dedicated Google, Amazon, Walmart, YouTube, ChatGPT and Gemini endpoints next to the general HTML API. remote-mcp.txt says the hosted MCP only takes the key as ?api_key= in its URL.

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

ScrapingBee

  1. Send render_js=false for static pages and files. It cuts the cost from 5 credits to 1
  2. Use mode=auto with max_cost=25 to stop it escalating to 75-credit stealth requests
  3. Keep the MCP URL with ?api_key= out of logs and shared configs
  4. Back off exponentially on 429 from the MCP, since its concurrency is shared across customers
  5. Expect 404 and 410 from the target to be billed. Other failures aren't

Other comparisons with Scrapfly or ScrapingBee

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