# ScrapingAnt vs Spider

> Spider has a score of 74.3 (BB) against ScrapingAnt's 35.9 (F). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 80 points. Spider accepts x402. ScrapingAnt doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-spider-cloud
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-spider-cloud.md (~1,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-spider-cloud.min.md (~380 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-spider-cloud.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: 2026-10-04

Spider has a score of 74.3 (BB) against ScrapingAnt's 35.9 (F). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 80 points. Spider accepts x402. ScrapingAnt doesn't.

- 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
- Spider: grade BB, 74.3/100, rank #49 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/spider-cloud.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/spider-cloud.json

## Which one, for what

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

Pick Spider for reliability (+50), schema & documentation (+44), security & auth (+32), payments & pricing (+56), maintenance & community (+80), transparency & trust (+12).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ScrapingAnt | Spider | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 30 | 80 | Spider +50 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 43 | 87 | Spider +44 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 70 | Spider +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 10 | 42 | Spider +32 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 96 | Spider +56 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 5 | 85 | Spider +80 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 69 | Spider +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **35.9 · F** | **74.3 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ScrapingAnt | Spider |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | ScrapingAnt (DATAANT) | Spider (BAGELMEN LLC) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general` | `https://api.spider.cloud` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | yes, from $0.0005/call |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 3 | 22 |
| 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 | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `cloud.spider/mcp` |
| Last release | 2024-07-16 | 2026-07-19 |
| Popularity | 90 npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk | 2.7k stars, 2.7k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3.3/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**ScrapingAnt.** 10,000 free credits a month with no card. API Basics puts the key in the query string, so it lands in logs.

**Spider.** Keyless /scrape and working x402 v2 on every core route, so an agent needs no account. Operated by BAGELMEN LLC with no address, retention periods or DPA in the privacy policy.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Spider

1. Every content route returns a JSON array, even /scrape. The status field is the page's, not the API call's
2. Leave request on smart and set return_format to markdown for LLM input
3. Set limit on /crawl. Unset, it caps only at your credit balance
4. Use /scrape with `stealth: true` instead of /unblocker, which is deprecated
5. Honour Retry-After on 429. Keyless use allows 4 requests a minute

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