# Scrapfly vs ZenRows

> ZenRows has a score of 75.1 (BB) against Scrapfly's 69.8 (B). Both do scraping. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 40 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-zenrows
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-zenrows.md (~1,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-vs-zenrows.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapfly-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 Scrapfly's 69.8 (B). Both do scraping. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 40 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
- 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 Scrapfly for schema & documentation (+12), security & auth (+29).

Pick ZenRows for reliability (+37), payments & pricing (+40).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Scrapfly | ZenRows | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 87 | ZenRows +37 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 95 | 83 | Scrapfly +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 79 | Scrapfly +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 70 | 41 | Scrapfly +29 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 80 | ZenRows +40 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 87 | ZenRows +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 75 | Scrapfly +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.8 · B** | **75.1 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Scrapfly | ZenRows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Scrapfly (Joam Intelligence, LLC) | ZenRows |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.scrapfly.io/scrape` | `https://api.zenrows.com/v1/` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 61 | 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.scrapfly.mcp/mcp` | `io.github.ZenRows/zenrows-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-08 | 2026-09-18 |
| Popularity | 14 stars, 21k npm/wk | 21 stars, 35k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3.8/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

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

**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

### 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

### 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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