String returned verified content on 97.0% of requests in the open Web Data Frontier Benchmark. Scrapingdog returned 45.6%. The September 16, 2026 run covered 100 real sites with five attempts each.
Scrapingdog is much cheaper. Its $90 Standard plan includes enough credits for 100,000 premium-proxy requests, while String Growth is a $100 subscription plus usage. String's advantage is coverage: 485 successful responses against 228, with 2 target shutouts against 32. Pick Scrapingdog for low-cost volume on known targets and its catalog of dedicated APIs. Pick String when a varied protected target list has to come back.
TL;DR
| String | Scrapingdog | |
|---|---|---|
| Product type | Unblocker: fetch, search, sitemap, remote browser | Web Scraping API plus 40-plus dedicated search, retail, social, and AI APIs |
| Benchmark success | 97.0% (485/500), 1st of 16 | 45.6% (228/500), 13th of 16 |
| Latency score | 7.06s, 1st of 16 | 26.55s, 16th of 16 |
| Sites with no successful attempt | 2 of 100 | 32 of 100 |
| Billing near $100/mo | Growth: $100 subscription plus $0.20 to $4.00 per 1,000 successful requests | Standard: $90 prepaid, 1,000,000 credits |
| Failure billing | Blocked requests are free | Failed, blocked, and timed-out requests are refunded |
| Tested configuration | Automatic fetch-path and proxy selection | Premium residential proxy, raw HTML, JavaScript rendering off |
| MCP and SDKs | Hosted MCP registry entry | MCP plus Node.js and Python SDKs |
| Where it wins | Coverage, fewer shutouts, verified-content billing | Price, dedicated API breadth, explicit controls, near-String latency score |
We built the benchmark and sell the product that ranks first. The target definitions, methodology, provider adapters, and August results are public so buyers can inspect the test and rerun it.
Each provider received the same 100 URLs five times. A response passed only when it contained a marker from the real page. A captcha or block page that returned HTTP 200 failed.
The Scrapingdog adapter set premium: true and dynamic: false. That routed through Scrapingdog's premium residential proxies and returned raw HTML without JavaScript rendering. Premium proxies are its strongest published anti-bot proxy path. Turning on dynamic could improve JavaScript-only pages, but this run does not prove how the combined configuration performs.
Scrapingdog's generic Web Scraping API handles rotating proxies, captcha bypass, optional JavaScript rendering, country targeting, sessions, headers, and raw HTML. It also has a Screenshot API and a rotating proxy endpoint that routes recognized domains into dedicated APIs.
The larger differentiator is its API catalog. One key unlocks more than 40 endpoints for Google Search, Maps, News, Shopping, Trends, and AI Mode; Amazon products, search, reviews, and offers; LinkedIn profiles and jobs; YouTube; TikTok; X; Walmart; eBay; Zillow; Yelp; and more. Those endpoints return structured JSON rather than generic page HTML.
String is narrower. Send a URL to one fetch endpoint and receive markdown, HTML, or JSON. Proxy selection, fingerprints, captcha handling, rendering, and retries happen behind the request. String also has /search, asynchronous sitemap discovery, a remote browser over CDP, and MCP tools. It does not offer Scrapingdog's large catalog of domain-specific parsers.
String passed 485 of 500 requests. Scrapingdog passed 228, a gap of 257 successful responses across the same target list.
| Per-target outcome | String | Scrapingdog |
|---|---|---|
| Passed all 5 attempts | 93 | 22 |
| Passed 1 to 4 attempts | 5 | 46 |
| Passed no attempts | 2 | 32 |
Scrapingdog's 22 perfect targets are Canada Goose, Kayak, Wall Street Journal, Google, Zoopla, Foot Locker, Facebook, Asda, eBay, GOAT, Tripadvisor, Vinted, Airbnb, Macy's, Alibaba, Booking.com, CoinMarketCap, TradingView, Nike, Delta, GitHub and Bing. For workloads concentrated on those sites, its lower price is compelling.
The 32 shutouts include Temu, Mouser, Crunchbase, Lowe's, Realtor.com, Skyscanner, Expedia, Louis Vuitton, Hyatt, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Idealista, StockX, Glassdoor, Ralph Lauren, Etsy, Yahoo Finance, Allegro, Indeed, Monster and LinkedIn. String passed 29 of the 32 on every attempt. Temu and Idealista defeated both products, and String passed four of five on Allegro.
The bigger change is the middle column. Scrapingdog now returns content on some attempts and nothing on others for 46 of the 100 sites, against 24 in August and String's 5. Almost half its target list produces a different dataset on every run.
Scrapingdog did not beat String on any target in this run.
Scrapingdog's premium proxy result was strongest on Kasada and on sites without a named commercial anti-bot vendor. PerimeterX is its weakest category, and it returned nothing at all on the single Fastly target, which it cleared in August.
| Anti-bot system | Sites | String | Scrapingdog |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | 15 | 100% | 40.0% |
| DataDome | 19 | 92.6% | 37.9% |
| Akamai | 20 | 98.0% | 49.0% |
| PerimeterX | 9 | 100% | 26.7% |
| AWS WAF | 6 | 96.7% | 56.7% |
| Kasada | 3 | 100% | 33.3% |
| Fastly | 1 | 100% | 100% |
| No named vendor | 26 | 96.2% | 69.2% |
Fastly is a tie, not a Scrapingdog lead. Across the seven larger categories, String led by 27 to 76 points. JavaScript rendering could change individual misses, so buyers should repeat this table against their targets with dynamic=true where the content requires it.
String's failure-aware latency score was 7.06 seconds, the fastest of 16. Scrapingdog's was 26.55 seconds, the slowest of 16, having placed third in August at 12.51. On the 21 sites both products returned on all five attempts, the median per-site time was 1.70 seconds for String and 21.00 for Scrapingdog. The score uses the per-target p75 of successful attempts and assigns a penalty when no page returns, so a fast block does not count as speed.
Scrapingdog's raw mean attempt time was 5.76 seconds against String's 7.67. That raw figure includes failures, which tend to return quickly. The failure-aware score is the better measure for a fixed target list, but Scrapingdog's third-place finish still makes speed a strength.
Scrapingdog Standard is $90 per month for 1,000,000 prepaid credits and 50 concurrent requests. A rotating-proxy request costs 1 credit, JavaScript rendering costs 5, and a premium-proxy request costs 10. At full use:
| Scrapingdog configuration | Credits/request | Pages included | Price per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rotating proxy | 1 | 1,000,000 | $0.09 |
| JavaScript rendering | 5 | 200,000 | $0.45 |
| Premium proxy | 10 | 100,000 | $0.90 |
String Growth is a $100 monthly subscription plus usage. Usage per 1,000 successful requests is $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.
Scrapingdog wins the price comparison. One hundred thousand premium-proxy successes fit in Standard for $90. The same count on String Growth's premium request path is $300: the $100 subscription plus $200 of usage. Even String's plain path is $120 total at 100,000 successes, above Scrapingdog's $90 rotating-proxy bundle.
Both products avoid charging for a block. Scrapingdog says failed, blocked, and timed-out requests are credited back. String bills only when verified page content returns. Scrapingdog's monthly credits reset on the billing date, while String credits roll over.
Price does not fill a target gap. At the benchmark's 45.6% result, Scrapingdog returned at least one page from 68 of 100 targets and nothing from 32. If your fixed list includes those misses, the cheap request is not a substitute for delivery. If your list sits inside its 22 perfect targets, Scrapingdog is the cheaper option.
Pick String when the dataset spans many protected domains and missing pages cost more than request volume. Pick Scrapingdog when your sites are in its coverage, price is the main constraint, or a dedicated Google, retail, social, or search endpoint saves parsing work. Test Scrapingdog with premium proxies and JavaScript together on pages that need rendering, and compare the body content rather than accepting HTTP 200 as success.
For measured coverage, yes: String passed 97.0% of requests against Scrapingdog's 45.6%, with 2 total shutouts against 32. Scrapingdog is cheaper and has more dedicated APIs, but it is no longer the faster product: its latency score fell from third of fifteen to last of sixteen between runs.
Yes. Scrapingdog Standard is $90 for 1,000,000 credits, including 100,000 premium-proxy requests. String Growth is $100 plus usage, with premium requests at $2.00 per 1,000 successes. At 100,000 premium successes, that is $90 for Scrapingdog and $300 for String.
The September run sends every provider through its strongest published configuration. The adapter routes through premium residential proxies. The 45.6% result is that path, not every possible combination of Scrapingdog's parameters.
No. Its pricing page says failed, blocked, and timed-out requests are refunded to the credit balance. String also does not bill a blocked request and requires verified page content.
Yes. Scrapingdog publishes an MCP server plus official Node.js and Python SDKs. The MCP tools cover its generic scraper and dedicated API catalog. String also hosts an MCP server with fetch, search, and sitemap tools.
Forty-one targets passed all five attempts, including Amazon, Home Depot, Nike, Target, Google, Yahoo Finance, TradingView, Airbnb, American Airlines, Delta, Apartments.com, Redfin, GitHub, and arXiv. String also passed those targets on every attempt.
They are structured endpoints for domains and data types such as Google Search, Maps, News, Shopping and AI Mode; Amazon products and reviews; LinkedIn profiles and jobs; YouTube; TikTok; X; Walmart; eBay; Zillow; and Yelp. Every plan includes the full catalog.
Run the public benchmark repository with your own keys. Its Scrapingdog adapter is short and explicit. Try the published premium configuration first, then add JavaScript rendering for targets whose real content requires it.
