# ScrapingBee vs ZenRows

> ZenRows has a score of 75.1 (BB) against ScrapingBee's 59.3 (C). 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/scrapingbee-vs-zenrows
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zenrows.md (~1,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zenrows.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-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 ScrapingBee's 59.3 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 40 points.

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

Pick ZenRows for reliability (+17), schema & documentation (+23), agent ergonomics (+11), payments & pricing (+40), transparency & trust (+11).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ScrapingBee | ZenRows | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 87 | ZenRows +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 83 | ZenRows +23 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 79 | ZenRows +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 37 | 41 | ZenRows +4 |
| 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) | 85 | 87 | ZenRows +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 64 | 75 | ZenRows +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.3 · C** | **75.1 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ScrapingBee | ZenRows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | ScrapingBee (Oxylabs group) | ZenRows |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/` | `https://api.zenrows.com/v1/` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | none |
| Tools exposed | 18 | 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 | not listed | `io.github.ZenRows/zenrows-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-11 | 2026-09-18 |
| Popularity | 132 stars, 49k npm/wk, 72k PyPI/wk | 21 stars, 35k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3.8/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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 ScrapingBee or ZenRows

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