# ScrapingBee vs Zyte API

> Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against ScrapingBee's 59.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingBee leads on maintenance & community. Both do scraping. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zyte
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zyte.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zyte.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zyte.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: 2026-10-09

Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against ScrapingBee's 59.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingBee leads on maintenance & community. Both do scraping.

- ScrapingBee: grade C, 59.2/100, rank #504 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapingbee.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapingbee.json
- Zyte API: grade B, 69.7/100, rank #166 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zyte.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zyte.json

## Which one, for what

### ScrapingBee (C)

Good for: Agents that mix general scraping with ready-made Google, Amazon and YouTube endpoints and want spend capped per call.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 77

Watch for: remote-mcp.txt says the hosted MCP only takes the key as ?api_key= in its URL

### Zyte API (B)

Good for: An agent or pipeline that fetches protected pages and wants the service to choose proxy and browser per site and to bill only success, and teams already on Scrapy.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 85 against 70
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 60
- Security & auth, 55 against 37

Watch for: Request price depends on the target site's tier, from $0.13 to $1.27 per 1,000 HTTP requests and $1.01 to $16.08 with a browser on pay-as-you-go


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ScrapingBee | Zyte API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 85 | Zyte API +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 60 | 85 | Zyte API +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 72 | Zyte API +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 37 | 55 | Zyte API +18 |
| 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) | 85 | 77 | ScrapingBee +8 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 66 | Zyte API +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **59.2 · C** | **69.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ScrapingBee | Zyte API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | ScrapingBee (Oxylabs group) | Zyte Group Limited |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/` | `https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under Zyte's terms of service. The Python client is BSD 3-Clause, and the Agentic Web Data plugin is under Zyte's own end-user licence |
| Tools exposed | 18 | 34 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-11 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-07-15 | 2026-09-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-07-15 | 2024-08-30 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 132 stars, 49k npm/wk, 72k PyPI/wk | 42k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |

## 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.

**Zyte API.** One POST endpoint with an OpenAPI 3 contract picks proxies, browser rendering and extraction per site, bills only successful responses, and sends problem+json errors with Retry-After. Prices vary by target site across five tiers, so cost per request isn't known before the site is assigned one, and no dated API changelog was found.

## 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

### Zyte API

1. Send the API key as the Basic auth username with an empty password to `https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract`. Set only one of `httpResponseBody` or `browserHtml`, or one extraction field
2. Ask for `httpResponseBody` before `browserHtml`. Browser requests cost about eight to thirteen times more per tier
3. Retry 429, 503 and 520 after the `Retry-After` seconds, with backoff. They aren't billed. Don't retry 400, 401, 422 or 451
4. Read `statusCode` in a 200 response. A target site's 404 comes back as a successful, billed Zyte API response
5. Have the owner set a blocking spending limit on the key you use. A 403 `/auth/account-suspended` means the limit or the trial month ended

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, ScrapingBee or Zyte API?

Zyte API scores 69.7 (B) on agent readiness against ScrapingBee's 59.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. ScrapingBee leads on maintenance & community.

### Do ScrapingBee and Zyte API need an API key?

ScrapingBee needs an API key. Zyte API takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call ScrapingBee and Zyte API without installing anything?

Yes. ScrapingBee has a hosted endpoint at https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/ and Zyte API at https://api.zyte.com/v1/extract.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zyte.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapingbee-vs-zyte.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "scrapingbee", "b": "zyte"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare scrapingbee zyte`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapingbee.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zyte.json

## Other comparisons with ScrapingBee or Zyte API

- [Firecrawl MCP vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Bright Data vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Bright Data vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-zyte.md)
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- [Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-scrapingbee.md)
- [Oxylabs Web Scraper API vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/oxylabs-web-scraper-vs-zyte.md)
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- [ScrapeGraphAI vs ScrapingBee](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapegraphai-vs-scrapingbee.md)
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- [Scrapeless vs Zyte API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/scrapeless-vs-zyte.md)
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