# Spider vs ZenRows

> ZenRows has a score of 75.1 (BB) against Spider's 74.3 (BB). Both do scraping. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 16 points. Spider accepts x402. ZenRows doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/spider-cloud-vs-zenrows
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/spider-cloud-vs-zenrows.md (~1,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/spider-cloud-vs-zenrows.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/spider-cloud-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 Spider's 74.3 (BB). Both do scraping. The largest gap is payments & pricing, 16 points. Spider accepts x402. ZenRows doesn't.

- 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
- 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 Spider for payments & pricing (+16).

Pick ZenRows for reliability (+7), agent ergonomics (+9), transparency & trust (+6).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Spider | ZenRows | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 87 | ZenRows +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 83 | Spider +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 79 | ZenRows +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 42 | 41 | Spider +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 96 | 80 | Spider +16 |
| 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) | 69 | 75 | ZenRows +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **74.3 · BB** | **75.1 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Spider | ZenRows |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Spider (BAGELMEN LLC) | ZenRows |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.spider.cloud` | `https://api.zenrows.com/v1/` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | yes, from $0.0005/call | payer tooling only |
| Licence | MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 22 | 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 | `cloud.spider/mcp` | `io.github.ZenRows/zenrows-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-07-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Popularity | 2.7k stars, 2.7k npm/wk | 21 stars, 35k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (8) | 3.8/5 (8) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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 Spider or ZenRows

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