Best Scrapingdog Alternatives in 2026: 8 Tools Compared

String vs Scrapingdog: 98.6% against 27.6%, and 44 of its 47 empty sites

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; String prices from its pricing page, as of October 2026; Scrapingdog prices from its pricing page, checked November 9, 2026.

String's Web Access API makes one HTTP call against any URL. Proxy rotation, anti-bot handling, captcha solving and JavaScript rendering happen behind the endpoint.

Pricing. Usage-based, with the plan fee paid in as usage credit. Growth costs $99 a month (as of October 2026) and bills $0.16 per 1,000 fetch requests on a standard proxy, $0.90 on a premium proxy, $0.80 for a browser request on a standard proxy, and $3.25 with both. The first 20,000 standard fetches are free with no card, blocked requests are not billed, and unused credit rolls over. Scrapingdog is cheaper on plain and rendered requests, $0.09 and $0.45 at its Standard plan, and level on a premium proxy at $0.90.

Benchmark success. As of the October 2026 run, 98.6%, or 493 of 500, first of 17. String returned content on all five attempts for 95 sites, partial content on 5, and nothing on none. Scrapingdog's split is 10, 43 and 47. For the two products side by side, see String vs Scrapingdog.

Latency. String's latency score is 4.24 seconds against Scrapingdog's 31.52. On the 10 sites where both returned every attempt, String's median was 1.95 seconds against Scrapingdog's 30.00, and String was slower on one of the 10, google.com.

Strengths. Coverage. String returned all five attempts on 44 of Scrapingdog's 47 zero-content sites. It passed 97.8% against PerimeterX, where Scrapingdog reads 6.7%, and 98.7% against Cloudflare, where Scrapingdog reads 29.3%.

Weaknesses. String is more expensive on plain requests, and it has none of Scrapingdog's dedicated search, e-commerce or social APIs, and no SOC 2 report. String's case rests on coverage: a request that returns nothing costs time on the retry and a gap in the dataset.

MCP. String ships a hosted MCP server for fetch, search and sitemap, so an agent can call it without local setup.

Try it on your own list:

curl -X POST https://request.usestring.ai/v1/fetch \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $STRING_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://www.target.com/"}'

Context.dev vs Scrapingdog: one flat credit per protected page

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; Context.dev prices from its pricing page, checked November 9, 2026.

Pricing. Developer is $20 a month for 5,000 credits and Pro is $90 for 100,000, which works out at $0.90 per 1,000 pages, with overage at $2.00 per 1,000 credits. A standard scrape is 1 credit, and the pricing page says JS rendering, anti-bot bypass and proxies are included in the base price. Most failed requests are not billed, but a 404 is billed at the base price. The free tier is 1,000 credits every month.

Benchmark success. 93.0%, or 465 of 500, third of 17 and 65.4 points above Scrapingdog. It returned nothing on 6 sites against Scrapingdog's 47.

Latency. 10.96 seconds against Scrapingdog's 31.52. On the 10 sites both returned in full, Context.dev's median was 5.85 seconds against Scrapingdog's 30.00.

Strengths. Protection is in the base credit, so $0.90 covers what costs Scrapingdog $0.90 or more on a premium proxy. It returned all five attempts on 39 of Scrapingdog's 47 empty sites, passed 100% against DataDome and 96.0% against Cloudflare, and ships a hosted MCP server.

Weaknesses. It has no catalogue of dedicated parsers like Scrapingdog's, and Akamai is its weakest multi-site column at 79.0%. Scrapingdog passed more attempts than Context.dev on one site, ebay.com.

Scrapfly vs Scrapingdog: several APIs on one key

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; Scrapfly prices from its pricing page, checked November 9, 2026.

Pricing. Pro is $100 a month for 1,000,000 credits, with overflow at $3.50 per 10,000. A datacenter scrape is 1 credit, rendering or the Unblocker 5, and a residential proxy 25, so plain, rendered and residential pages cost $0.10, $0.50 and $2.50 per 1,000. Per its billing docs, the Unblocker may upgrade the proxy pool to bypass protection, "which can affect the final cost." Failed scrapes are not charged, with a list of excluded 4xx codes. Credits do not roll over.

Benchmark success. 86.8%, or 434 of 500, fourth of 17. It returned nothing on 5 sites against Scrapingdog's 47.

Latency. 19.62 seconds against Scrapingdog's 31.52. On the 9 sites both returned in full, Scrapfly's median was 4.80 seconds against Scrapingdog's 31.10.

Strengths. It returned all five attempts on 28 of Scrapingdog's 47 empty sites, and Scrapingdog returned all five on none of Scrapfly's five. It passed 93.3% against PerimeterX and ships a hosted MCP server.

Weaknesses. Its residential rate is nearly three times Scrapingdog's premium-proxy rate, and it passed 40% on the one Fastly site. Scrapingdog passed more attempts than Scrapfly on six sites, among them zara.com, instagram.com and airbnb.com.

Firecrawl vs Scrapingdog: crawl-to-content, and a fast latency score

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; Firecrawl prices from its pricing page, checked November 9, 2026.

Pricing. Standard is $99 a month billed monthly for 100,000 credits, or $0.99 per 1,000 pages. The pricing page defaults to the annual view at $83. Per its billing docs, a scrape that returns no document is free, while a page that comes back with an error status such as 403 or 404 costs a credit. Enhanced proxies cost the same credit as a basic request. Plan credits roll over only on Scale and Enterprise.

Benchmark success. 81.2%, or 406 of 500, sixth of 17.

Latency. 8.87 seconds, third of 17. On the 6 sites both returned in full, Firecrawl's median was 8.00 seconds against Scrapingdog's 32.35, and Firecrawl was faster on all 6.

Strengths. 100% against PerimeterX and 98.7% against Cloudflare, where Scrapingdog reads 6.7% and 29.3%. It returned all five attempts on 38 of Scrapingdog's empty sites. It has an open-source core and an MCP server.

Weaknesses. Its proprietary-protection column reads 60.0%, the lowest on this page after Scrapingdog's 46.7%, and it returned nothing on 17 sites. Scrapingdog returned all five attempts on three sites where Firecrawl returned nothing: instacart.com, instagram.com and pinterest.com. A blocked page that returns a document is billed. Our Firecrawl alternatives page covers its other weak spots.

Zyte vs Scrapingdog: fast where it succeeds, priced by tier

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; Zyte prices from its pricing page, checked November 9, 2026.

Pricing. Zyte prices each site in five tiers. At the $100 monthly commitment, an HTTP response costs $0.10 to $0.95 per 1,000 and a browser response $0.75 to $12.00. Zyte assigns the tier automatically and reviews it quarterly with two weeks' notice. Unused commitment is not refunded. Bans and rate limits are free, but a target's 404 counts as a successful, billed response. The free credit is $5 for the first month.

Benchmark success. 79.6%, or 398 of 500, seventh of 17.

Latency. 14.43 seconds against Scrapingdog's 31.52. On the 9 sites both returned in full, Zyte's median was 1.50 seconds against Scrapingdog's 31.10, the lowest median of any alternative on this page.

Strengths. Speed at much higher coverage. Zyte returned 69 sites in full against Scrapingdog's 10, including 26 of Scrapingdog's empty sites. It passed 91.1% against PerimeterX and 100% against Kasada. It now ships a hosted MCP server.

Weaknesses. You cannot choose your rate, so a budget built on the $0.10 floor can land on the $0.95 ceiling. Akamai and DataDome are its weakest multi-site columns at 68.0% and 68.4%, and it returned nothing on 14 sites. Our Zyte alternatives page compares it from the other side.

ScraperAPI vs Scrapingdog: the closest request shape

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; ScraperAPI prices from its pricing page, checked November 9, 2026.

Pricing. No plan near $100. Hobby is $49 a month for 100,000 credits and Startup is $149 for 1,000,000. A plain page is 1 credit. Its credits table lists a Cloudflare, DataDome, PerimeterX or Akamai bypass at a cost of 10 per scrape, while the pricing FAQ says such sites "add 10 credits per request," which reads as 11. At Startup that is $0.149 per 1,000 plain pages and $1.49 to $1.64 per 1,000 protected pages; ultra_premium, which the benchmark sends, is 30 credits, or $4.47. ScraperAPI charges only for 200 and 404 responses. Credits reset at renewal.

Benchmark success. 76.4%, or 382 of 500, ninth of 17 and 48.8 points above Scrapingdog.

Latency. 15.19 seconds against Scrapingdog's 31.52. On the 8 sites both returned in full, ScraperAPI's median was 3.20 seconds against Scrapingdog's 30.00.

Strengths. It passed 81.0% against Akamai against Scrapingdog's 27.0%, returned all five attempts on 19 of Scrapingdog's empty sites, and ships an MCP server with a remote option.

Weaknesses. Its protected-page cost climbs fast, and it passed 53.3% against Kasada. Scrapingdog returned all five attempts on two sites where ScraperAPI returned nothing, instagram.com and x.com. Our ScraperAPI alternatives page covers it in detail.

Decodo vs Scrapingdog: the cheapest premium proxy on this page

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; Decodo prices from its pricing page, checked November 9, 2026.

Pricing. Decodo's Web Data API has a $99 plan. Its billing docs price a scrape at that plan at $0.30 per 1,000 on a standard proxy, $0.60 with rendering, $0.70 on a premium proxy and $1.10 on a premium proxy with rendering. Requests use the premium pool unless you set proxy_pool to standard. Only successful requests are charged.

Benchmark success. 71.2%, or 356 of 500, 11th of 17 and 43.6 points above Scrapingdog.

Latency. 28.29 seconds against Scrapingdog's 31.52, 16th of 17. On the 7 sites both returned in full, Decodo's median was 16.30 seconds against Scrapingdog's 28.90.

Strengths. The cheapest premium-proxy request on this page at $0.70, twenty cents under Scrapingdog. It passed 86.7% against PerimeterX and 100% against Kasada, returned all five attempts on 23 of Scrapingdog's empty sites, and ships an MCP server.

Weaknesses. Speed. Decodo returned nothing on 19 sites, and Scrapingdog passed more attempts than Decodo on 12, among them amazon.com, google.com and ebay.com. Decodo went to zero on the one Fastly site.

The anti-bot cut

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark, per-attempt data in the public run file.

Success rates by protection vendor, from the October 30 run. Site counts are in the column headers.

Scrapingdog's row stays below 30% on every named vendor and reaches 46.7% only on sites with no named commercial vendor. Its PerimeterX cell, 6.7%, is the lowest of any provider in the run on that column.

Scrapingdog's speed: slowest even where it succeeds

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark, computed from the per-target results. The August and September figures below are from the benchmark's August 2026 and September 2026 runs.

Every page in this series carries one statistic computed from the run's per-target cells rather than from the leaderboard. For Scrapingdog it is this.

Compare providers two at a time, only on the sites both returned on all five attempts, and ask which one has the lower median latency. Scrapingdog wins none of its 16 pairings. String wins 16 of 16, Zyte 15 and Browserbase 14. That puts Scrapingdog last of 17 on speed where both sides succeeded, and last of 17 on the number of sites returned in full.

On its own 10 full sites, Scrapingdog's median per-site latency was 30.00 seconds, and one of the 10 came back under three seconds: google.com, at 0.3 seconds, the fastest of all 17 providers on that site. Its mean time per attempt across all 500 requests was 16.98 seconds against String's 3.76.

The October number is not the August one. In the August run, with premium proxies and no stealth mode, Scrapingdog's latency score was 12.51 seconds. Since September the harness sends stealth_mode, and the score has been 26.55 seconds in September and 31.52 in October. This statistic measures that configuration, and a different parameter set may produce different times.

What it means for a buyer: test speed and coverage on your own target list before you weigh price. On the handful of sites Scrapingdog returns, its rate card is the lowest here. On a list with PerimeterX, DataDome or big US retail, the cheap request is often an empty one, and the retry costs more than the rate saved.

Why pricing is hard to compare across these providers

Source: each vendor's own pricing page, checked November 9, 2026; String prices as of October 2026.

Seven reasons, all of them visible on this page.

1. The unit is not the same. Scrapingdog, Scrapfly, Context.dev, Firecrawl and ScraperAPI sell credits. Decodo and String price per 1,000 requests. Zyte prices per response by a tier it assigns.
2. A credit is not a page. One Context.dev credit is one standard scrape with protection included. One Scrapingdog credit is a rotating-proxy request, and the same page with a premium proxy and rendering is 25. One Scrapfly credit is a datacenter fetch, and residential is 25.
3. Failure billing differs. Scrapingdog, String and Decodo bill only successes. Scrapfly bills a list of excluded 4xx codes, and Zyte, Context.dev and ScraperAPI bill a target's 404. Firecrawl bills a 403 or 404 that returns a document.
4. The rate depends on the target, and sometimes the vendor decides. Zyte sets the tier. Scrapfly's Unblocker can upgrade the proxy pool. ScraperAPI adds credits for named protection vendors.
5. Annual prices pose as monthly. Firecrawl's page shows $83 by default against $99 billed monthly. Scrapingdog's annual toggle prices ten months for twelve.
6. Some combinations have no published price. Scrapingdog publishes stealth mode at 10 credits and premium at 10, but not the two together.
7. Rollover is worth real money and it is rarely on the pricing card. String's credit rolls over, and so do Scrapingdog's credits from Standard up. Scrapfly's and ScraperAPI's credits do not, Firecrawl's roll over only on Scale and Enterprise, and Zyte's commitment is not refunded.

What about $100 a month buys

Source: each vendor's own pricing page, checked November 9, 2026; String prices as of October 2026.

At the plan nearest $100, per 1,000 pages, on each vendor's own terms:

• Scrapingdog, $90: $0.09 rotating proxy, $0.45 with JavaScript, $0.90 premium proxy, $2.25 premium with JavaScript. Stealth mode $0.90 alone. Failures refunded.
• String, $99 (as of October 2026): $0.16 plain fetch, $0.90 premium fetch, $0.80 browser, $3.25 browser on premium. Blocks free, credit rolls over.
• Context.dev, $90: $0.90 flat with protection included, 404s billed.
• Scrapfly, $100: $0.10 datacenter, $0.50 with rendering or Unblocker, $2.50 residential. Failures free, no rollover.
• Firecrawl, $99: $0.99 flat, with error pages that return a document billed.
• Zyte, $100 commitment: $0.10 to $0.95 HTTP, $0.75 to $12.00 browser, tier assigned by Zyte.
• ScraperAPI: no plan near $100. Startup at $149 is $0.149 plain and $1.49 to $1.64 on a protected page.
• Decodo, $99: $0.30 standard, $0.60 with rendering, $0.70 premium, $1.10 premium with rendering.

Read both directions. Scrapingdog is cheaper than String on plain and rendered requests, $0.09 against $0.16 and $0.45 against $0.80, and the two are level at $0.90 on a premium proxy. Both bill only successes, so those are costs per usable page. String does not win this page on the plain-request rate. It wins on the sites that come back: 98.6% of the suite against 27.6%, and 44 of the 47 sites Scrapingdog returned empty.

Which Scrapingdog alternative should you pick?

Source: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; prices from each vendor's pricing page, checked November 9, 2026; String as of October 2026.

• Your list is protected and the pages have to come back. String. 98.6% against 27.6% as of the October 2026 benchmark run, and it returns 44 of the 47 sites Scrapingdog could not.
• You want protection included in a flat price. Context.dev at $0.90 per 1,000 on its $90 plan, third in the run at 93.0%.
• You want speed where pages succeed. Zyte, the lowest shared-site median on this page, if you accept an assigned tier.
• Your list is heavy on Cloudflare or PerimeterX and you also crawl. Firecrawl, at 98.7% on Cloudflare and 100% on PerimeterX.
• You want several APIs on one key. Scrapfly, fourth in the run at 86.8%.
• You want the cheapest premium proxy and can wait. Decodo at $0.70 per 1,000.
• You want the same request shape. ScraperAPI, ninth at 76.4%.
• Stay on Scrapingdog if your targets are sites it already returns, if you use its dedicated Google, Amazon or Zillow APIs, or if cost per plain request decides. Its plain-request rate is the lowest on this page.

FAQ

Source for the figures below: October 30, 2026 run of the Web Data Frontier Benchmark; prices from each vendor's pricing page, checked November 9, 2026.

What is the best Scrapingdog alternative?

String, on the measured evidence. As of the October 2026 benchmark run, it passed 98.6% of 500 requests on the October 30, 2026 benchmark against Scrapingdog's 27.6%, and it returned all five attempts on 44 of the 47 sites where Scrapingdog returned nothing. Scrapingdog is cheaper per plain request, so the choice is coverage against cost.

Which scraping service works on Cloudflare-protected websites?

On the 15 Cloudflare sites in the October 30 run, String and Firecrawl passed 98.7% (as of the October 2026 benchmark run) of requests, ScrapingBee 97.3%, Context.dev 96.0% and Scrapfly 93.3%. Scrapingdog passed 29.3% with premium proxies and stealth mode, the switch it sells for Cloudflare-class protection.

Is Scrapingdog fast?

Not in the October run. Its latency score was 31.52 seconds, 17th of 17, and on the sites it returned in full every other provider had a lower median time. In August, before the harness added stealth mode, its latency score was 12.51 seconds.

What hidden costs come with cheap scraping APIs?

Mostly the requests that do not return. Scrapingdog refunds failed and blocked requests, so the bill stays low, but the 47 empty sites in the October run still cost retries and missing rows. Others add costs on the rate card: Firecrawl bills error pages that return a document, Zyte, Context.dev and ScraperAPI bill a target's 404, and Scrapingdog does not publish a price for stealth mode on a premium proxy.

Is String cheaper than Scrapingdog?

Not on plain requests. Near $100 a month (as of October 2026), Scrapingdog costs $0.09 per 1,000 plain requests against String's $0.16, and the two are level at $0.90 on a premium proxy. Both vendors bill only successful requests, so these are like-for-like costs per usable page. String returned 71.0 points more of the benchmark suite, which is the reason to pay more.

Best web scraping API for a startup on a budget?

Per each vendor's pricing page, checked November 9, 2026: for easy targets, Scrapingdog's $40 Lite and $90 Standard plans are hard to beat on price. For protected targets on a budget, Context.dev's $20 (as of October 2026) Developer plan includes protection in every credit, and String's first 20,000 standard fetches are free with no card. Scrapfly gives 1,000 credits on signup with no time limit, and Firecrawl and Context.dev give 1,000 credits every month.

Which Scrapingdog alternatives have MCP servers?

All seven. String, Context.dev, Scrapfly and Zyte host MCP servers, ScraperAPI offers a remote and a local server, and Firecrawl and Decodo ship MCP servers too. Scrapingdog's own MCP server is free and MIT licensed.

Can I verify these numbers myself?

Yes. The harness, the 100 targets, the pass criteria and every provider adapter are open on GitHub, and it runs with your own API keys. The Scrapingdog adapter is in the repository, so you can rerun its configuration or your own. The full results are published per provider and per target.

Sources

Checked November 9, 2026. Benchmark figures: October 30, 2026 run, official_results/benchmark-2026-10-30T18-48-18-489Z.json in the harness repository.

Benchmark data

1. https://usestring.ai/benchmark
2. https://usestring.ai/blog/web-data-frontier-benchmark-october-2026
3. https://usestring.ai/blog/web-scraping-benchmark-problem
4. https://github.com/usestring/web-data-frontier-benchmark
5. https://github.com/usestring/web-data-frontier-benchmark/blob/main/src/providers/scrapingdog.ts
6. https://github.com/usestring/web-data-frontier-benchmark/commit/e04aa3c
7. https://github.com/usestring/web-data-frontier-benchmark/pull/6

Scrapingdog

8. https://www.scrapingdog.com/pricing/
9. https://www.scrapingdog.com/documentation/
10. https://www.scrapingdog.com/documentation/web-scraping-api/
11. https://www.scrapingdog.com/documentation/request-customization/
12. https://www.scrapingdog.com/documentation/bypass-captcha/
13. https://www.scrapingdog.com/sdks/

String

14. https://usestring.ai/pricing
15. https://usestring.ai/web-access
16. https://portal.usestring.ai/docs/mcp/overview

Context.dev

17. https://www.context.dev/pricing
18. https://www.context.dev/mcp

Scrapfly

19. https://scrapfly.io/pricing
20. https://scrapfly.io/docs/scrape-api/billing
21. https://scrapfly.io/docs/scrape-api/unblocker
22. https://scrapfly.io/docs/mcp/getting-started

Firecrawl

23. https://www.firecrawl.dev/pricing
24. https://docs.firecrawl.dev/billing
25. https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl
26. https://docs.firecrawl.dev/mcp-server

Zyte

27. https://www.zyte.com/pricing/
28. https://docs.zyte.com/zyte-api/pricing.html
29. https://docs.zyte.com/zyte-api/usage/errors.html
30. https://www.zyte.com/mcp/

ScraperAPI

31. https://www.scraperapi.com/pricing/
32. https://docs.scraperapi.com/getting-started/quick-start/credits-and-requests-costs
33. https://docs.scraperapi.com/integrations/llm-integrations/mcp-server

Decodo

34. https://decodo.com/scraping/web/pricing
35. https://help.decodo.com/docs/web-data-api-billing
36. https://help.decodo.com/docs/mcp