String returned verified content on 97.0% of requests in the open Web Data Frontier Benchmark. Scrapfly returned 82.0%, second among the 15 providers tested. The run covered 99 real sites with five attempts each on August 11, 2026.
Scrapfly is the closest competitor in the benchmark, and it has the cheaper published rate for protected pages. String is 15 points ahead on success and nearly twice as fast on the failure-aware latency score. Pick Scrapfly for a broad scraping platform with low credit weights. Pick String when the page has to come back.
TL;DR
| String | Scrapfly | |
|---|---|---|
| Product type | Unblocker: fetch, search, sitemap, remote browser | Platform: web scraping, cloud browser, screenshot, extraction, and crawler APIs |
| Benchmark success | 97.0% (480/495), 1st of 15 | 82.0% (406/495), 2nd of 15 |
| Latency score | 9.98s | 18.35s |
| Sites with no successful attempt | 2 of 99 | 8 of 99 |
| Protected-page price at $100/mo | Growth: $2.00 per 1,000 successful premium requests | Pro: about $0.50 per 1,000 ASP or JavaScript requests at full use |
| Failure billing | Blocked requests are free; credits roll over | Failed requests are free; self-serve credits do not roll over |
| Browser support | Browser fetch path and remote Chrome over CDP | Cloud Browser over CDP plus JavaScript rendering in the scrape API |
| MCP and SDKs | MCP registry entry, API clients | Hosted MCP, Python, TypeScript, Go, and Scrapy |
| Where it wins | Coverage, latency, fewer shutouts, automatic path selection | Lower protected-page rate, broader product surface, Mouser, Neiman Marcus, and Skyscanner in this run |
We built the benchmark and sell the product that ranks first. The answer to that conflict is reproducibility. The 99 target definitions, pass criteria, provider adapters, and August results are public. Run a subset against your own targets before buying either product.
The benchmark sent both providers the same 99 URLs five times. A request passed only when its response contained a marker from the real page. A captcha or block page that returned HTTP 200 failed.
Scrapfly ran in a strong fetch configuration. Its adapter set asp: true and render_js: false. ASP is Scrapfly's anti-scraping protection path. The result therefore measures ASP without browser rendering. Turning on rendering might help on JavaScript-heavy misses, but it would be a different configuration and would not prove that all eight shutouts disappear.
Scrapfly's platform puts five products behind one account: a Web Scraping API, Cloud Browser, Screenshot API, Extraction API, and an early-access Crawler API. The scrape endpoint can rotate proxies, render JavaScript, run browser actions, cache results, capture screenshots, and return clean content. The Extraction API supports predefined models, LLM prompts, and rule-based templates. This is the broader toolbox.
String is a narrower product. Send a URL to the fetch endpoint and receive markdown, HTML, or JSON. Proxy selection, fingerprints, captchas, retries, and escalation happen behind the request. String also has /search, asynchronous sitemap discovery, a remote browser over CDP, and MCP tools. It does not have Scrapfly's dedicated screenshot or extraction APIs. Its main advantage is the result on hard pages.
String passed 480 of 495 requests. Scrapfly passed 406. The 15-point difference is 74 additional successful requests across the same target list.
| Per-target outcome | String | Scrapfly |
|---|---|---|
| Passed all 5 attempts | 92 | 68 |
| Passed 1 to 4 attempts | 5 | 23 |
| Passed no attempts | 2 | 8 |
Scrapfly is not a weak baseline. Its 82.0% was 2.8 points ahead of third-place Context.dev and 3.4 points ahead of Firecrawl. It is the only competitor in the run that crossed 80%.
The latency score is the per-target p75 of successful attempts. A provider that fails a target inherits the p75 of providers that succeeded, so fast blocks do not improve the score. String placed second at 9.98 seconds. Scrapfly placed twelfth at 18.35 seconds.
Scrapfly beat String on three targets:
| Target | Scrapfly | String |
|---|---|---|
| Mouser | 5/5 | 4/5 |
| Neiman Marcus | 5/5 | 4/5 |
| Skyscanner | 4/5 | 0/5 |
Skyscanner is the decisive win. A buyer concentrated on that target should prefer Scrapfly from this run, then repeat the test with the exact URLs needed in production. Scrapfly is also less expensive on its published rate card, and its separate browser, screenshot, extraction, and crawling products can replace several integrations.
Scrapfly returned no verified content on Temu, AutoZone, AutoTrader, Coupang, Zara, Airbnb, Booking.com, and AXS. String also failed Temu, but passed every attempt on AutoZone, AutoTrader, Zara, Airbnb, and AXS. It passed four of five on Coupang and Booking.com.
The practical difference is not only eight shutouts against two. Scrapfly was partial on 23 more sites, while String was partial on five. A scraper that succeeds intermittently can leave quiet gaps in a scheduled dataset. String's 92 perfect targets against Scrapfly's 68 means fewer retries and less missing data.
Both products were strong across the named anti-bot systems. String led every category in the run.
| Anti-bot system | Sites | String | Scrapfly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | 15 | 100% | 92.0% |
| DataDome | 19 | 97.9% | 81.1% |
| Akamai | 20 | 98.0% | 71.0% |
| PerimeterX | 9 | 88.9% | 82.2% |
| AWS WAF | 6 | 96.7% | 83.3% |
| Kasada | 3 | 100% | 80.0% |
| Fastly | 1 | 100% | 80.0% |
| No named vendor | 26 | 96.2% | 85.4% |
Scrapfly's profile is unusually even. It did not collapse against any commercial anti-bot vendor, and 92.0% on Cloudflare is excellent. String's edge is consistency above that level, especially on Akamai.
Scrapfly Pro is $100 per month for 1,000,000 credits. A plain datacenter HTTP request costs one credit. JavaScript rendering or ASP costs five. Residential proxies cost 25. A screenshot costs 60. At full monthly use, that is about $0.10 per 1,000 plain requests, $0.50 per 1,000 ASP or JavaScript requests, $2.50 per 1,000 residential requests, and $6.00 per 1,000 screenshots. Failed requests are not charged.
Discovery is $30 for 200,000 credits. Pro includes 20 concurrent requests and pay-as-you-go overflow at $3.50 per 10,000 credits. Monthly credits do not roll over, so the per-request figures assume the full allowance is consumed.
String Growth is $100 per month. Its rates per 1,000 successful requests are $0.20 for a request path on a standard proxy, $2.00 on a premium proxy, $1.00 for a browser on a standard proxy, and $4.00 for a browser on a premium proxy. Blocked requests are free and credits roll over.
| Typical path at the $100 tier | String Growth | Scrapfly Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Plain HTTP request | $0.20 per 1,000 successes | $0.10 per 1,000 requests |
| Anti-bot or premium path | $2.00 per 1,000 successes | $0.50 per 1,000 ASP requests |
| Browser rendering | $1.00 to $4.00 per 1,000 successes | $0.50 before any residential-proxy weight |
| Residential or premium proxy | included in the $2.00 to $4.00 path | $2.50 per 1,000 requests |
Scrapfly wins this table. At full use, its ASP configuration is one quarter of String's premium-request rate. Even its residential rate is close to String's premium request and below String's browser-plus-premium path.
Do not divide either list rate by its benchmark success rate. Both products say failed requests are free, so a block costs coverage rather than usage money. The cost is the missing page, the retry, and the engineering needed to fill the gap.
Scrapfly's hosted MCP server exposes page fetch, advanced scrape, screenshot, account information, and an instruction tool. The simple page tool renders JavaScript and returns markdown by default. Scrapfly also publishes SDKs for four ecosystems and supports browser scenarios with click, fill, wait, scroll, and custom JavaScript actions in the scrape API.
String's hosted MCP server exposes fetch, search, and sitemap tools. Its remote browser is a Chrome DevTools Protocol endpoint for Playwright or Puppeteer. Use Scrapfly when one vendor should cover scraping, extraction, screenshots, crawling, and browser automation. Use String when the core requirement is reliable retrieval from a protected URL.
For broad retrieval coverage, yes in this benchmark. String returned verified content on 97.0% of 495 requests against Scrapfly's 82.0%, and String's latency score was 9.98 seconds against 18.35. Scrapfly is better on published price, broader API surface, and three individual targets.
Yes on the published $100 tiers at full use. Scrapfly Pro works out to about $0.50 per 1,000 ASP requests. String Growth is $2.00 per 1,000 successful premium requests. Scrapfly credits expire monthly, while String credits roll over, so unused allowance changes the comparison.
Mouser, Neiman Marcus, and Skyscanner. Scrapfly passed all five attempts on Mouser and Neiman Marcus against String's four. It passed four of five on Skyscanner while String passed none.
Scrapfly returned no verified content on Temu, AutoZone, AutoTrader, Coupang, Zara, Airbnb, Booking.com, and AXS. Its benchmark adapter used ASP but did not turn on JavaScript rendering, so this is not proof that every Scrapfly mode fails those sites.
No. Scrapfly's pricing page says failed requests are never charged. String also bills only requests that return content. For both products, a failure costs coverage and time rather than request credits.
Yes. Scrapfly runs a hosted MCP server with simple and advanced scraping, screenshot, and account tools. String also runs a hosted MCP server with fetch, search, and sitemap tools.
Yes. JavaScript rendering costs five credits per request on the published rate card, the same weight as ASP. Scrapfly also supports browser scenarios and a separate cloud browser. The benchmark used ASP with JavaScript rendering off.
Use the public benchmark repository. It contains the targets, adapters, pass markers, methodology, and raw August results. Add your own keys, start with the sites that matter to you, and compare the returned content rather than HTTP status alone.
