# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-scrapingbee
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-scrapingbee.md (~1,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-scrapingbee.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-scrapingbee.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 ScrapingBee's 59.3 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 35 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
- ScrapingBee: grade C, 59.3/100, rank #268 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapingbee.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapingbee.json

## 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

| Category | Weight | Scrapfly | ScrapingBee | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 70 | ScrapingBee +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 95 | 60 | Scrapfly +35 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 68 | Scrapfly +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 70 | 37 | Scrapfly +33 |
| 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 | 85 | ScrapingBee +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 64 | Scrapfly +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.8 · B** | **59.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Scrapfly | ScrapingBee |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Scrapfly (Joam Intelligence, LLC) | ScrapingBee (Oxylabs group) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.scrapfly.io/scrape` | `https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 61 | 18 |
| 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.scrapfly.mcp/mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-08 | 2026-09-11 |
| Popularity | 14 stars, 21k npm/wk | 132 stars, 49k npm/wk, 72k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (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

- [Bright Data vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Bright Data vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Jina Reader vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Jina Reader vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jina-reader-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Olostep vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Olostep vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/olostep-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Scrape.do vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrape-do-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Scrape.do vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrape-do-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [ScrapeGraphAI vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapegraphai-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [ScrapeGraphAI vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapegraphai-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Scrapeless vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Scrapeless vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Scrapfly vs ScrapingAnt](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-scrapingant.md)
- [Scrapfly vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [Scrapfly vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [Scrapfly vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-zenrows.md)
- [ScrapingAnt vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [ScrapingBee vs Scrapingdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-scrapingdog.md)
- [ScrapingBee vs Spider](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-spider-cloud.md)
- [ScrapingBee vs ZenRows](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zenrows.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Firecrawl MCP vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapfly.md)
- [Apify MCP Server vs Scrapfly](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/apify-mcp-vs-scrapfly.md)