# ScrapingAnt vs ZenRows

> ZenRows has a score of 75.1 (BB) against ScrapingAnt's 35.9 (F). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 82 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-zenrows
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-zenrows.md (~1,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-vs-zenrows.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingant-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 ScrapingAnt's 35.9 (F). Both do scraping. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 82 points.

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

Pick ZenRows for reliability (+57), schema & documentation (+40), agent ergonomics (+13), security & auth (+31), payments & pricing (+40), maintenance & community (+82), transparency & trust (+18).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ScrapingAnt | ZenRows | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 30 | 87 | ZenRows +57 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 43 | 83 | ZenRows +40 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 79 | ZenRows +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 10 | 41 | ZenRows +31 |
| 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) | 5 | 87 | ZenRows +82 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 75 | ZenRows +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **35.9 · F** | **75.1 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ScrapingAnt | ZenRows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | ScrapingAnt (DATAANT) | ZenRows |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.scrapingant.com/v2/general` | `https://api.zenrows.com/v1/` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 3 | 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 | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.ZenRows/zenrows-mcp` |
| Last release | 2024-07-16 | 2026-09-18 |
| Popularity | 90 npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk | 21 stars, 35k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | 3.8/5 (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.

**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

### 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

### 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

## Other comparisons with ScrapingAnt or ZenRows

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