Scrapfly vs Spider
Comparing architecture, runtime limits, open-source licenses, and monthly costs for autonomous agent pipelines.
Detailed Specifications & Compatibility Matrix
Extracted directly from GitHub REST API & official developer documentation
| Technical Feature / Metric | Scrapfly | Spider |
|---|---|---|
| Developer / Organization | Scrapfly SAS | Spider Rust Org (Jeff Mendez) |
| Open-Source Engine | ✕ Proprietary Cloud | ✓ Open Source (MIT) |
| GitHub Stars (Repo/SDK) | Proprietary / Closed Core | ★ 2,795 GitHub Stars |
| Core Repository Language | Cloud API | Rust |
| Supported SDK Clients | ||
| Self-Hosted Deployment | Hosted Only | ✓ Supported |
| Docker / Container Ready | Managed | ✓ Official Image |
| Model Context Protocol (MCP) | ✓ Native MCP | ✓ Native MCP |
| Billing Architecture | usage based | free |
| Developer Free Tier | ✓ Yes 1,000 free API credits | ✓ Yes 1,000 free credits on sign-up |
| Entry Paid Tier (Monthly) | $30 USD / mo | $15 USD / mo |
| Pricing & Cost Architecture | Free trial provides 1,000 initial API credits. Discovery plan starts at $30/mo for 200,000 API credits (basic request = 1 credit; JS rendering + residential proxy = 5-25 credits). | Core Rust crawler is 100% free and open-source under MPL-2.0. Managed Spider Cloud API offers a free tier of 1,000 credits, with paid plans beginning at $15/mo. |
| Key Engineering Insight | Uses custom-patched Chromium instances to mimic real residential JA3/TLS browser fingerprints, bypassing Cloudflare Turnstile and DataDome automatically. | Independent benchmarks demonstrate Spider crawling large e-commerce catalogs at over 100,000 pages per minute while maintaining RAM consumption under 150MB. |
Strengths & Trade-Offs
Objective engineering evaluation of both platforms
Scrapfly Evaluation
Key Advantages
- ✓ Advanced Anti-Scraping Protection (ASP) with automated residential proxy rotation and CAPTCHA solving
- ✓ Direct markdown format extraction parameter (&format=markdown) built specifically for LLM ingestion
- ✓ Full JavaScript rendering engine supporting custom pre-scrape evaluate scripts and scroll triggers
Limitations & Trade-Offs
- ✕ Advanced proxy and headless browser features consume between 5 and 25 API credits per request
- ✕ Strictly cloud-hosted API; no on-premise Docker deployment option
Spider Evaluation
Key Advantages
- ✓ High-performance Rust architecture delivering benchmark speeds up to 10x faster than Python Scrapy
- ✓ Minimal CPU and RAM footprint allowing dense deployment on lightweight VPS instances or containers
- ✓ Permissive Mozilla Public License 2.0 open-source engine with built-in headless browser and HTTP modes
Limitations & Trade-Offs
- ✕ Smaller developer community and fewer pre-built third-party plugins compared to Playwright or Puppeteer
- ✕ Extending low-level network and HTML parsing logic requires proficiency with the Rust toolchain
Source Quotes
Direct excerpts from official documentation backing our extracted specifications
Scrapfly Documentation Proof
"Discovery plan starts at $30/mo with 200,000 API credits and unlimited concurrency."
"Free trial includes 1,000 credits to test all features and proxy networks."
"Fully managed cloud infrastructure; integrations available via SDKs and REST."
Spider Documentation Proof
"Spider Cloud paid subscriptions start at $15/month for 100,000 pages."
"Free tier provides 1,000 credits to test API endpoints."
"Open source engine available under MPL-2.0 for self-hosted instances."
Frequently Asked Questions: Scrapfly vs Spider
Architectural trade-offs and decision criteria
Is Scrapfly or Spider cheaper for developers?
Scrapfly has a starting price of $30/mo (usage based), while Spider starts at $15/mo (free). Scrapfly includes a free tier (1,000 free API credits). Spider offers a free tier (1,000 free credits on sign-up).
Can I self-host Scrapfly and Spider in my own infrastructure?
Scrapfly is a cloud-managed service only. In comparison, Spider is available for self-hosting with MIT licensing.
Do Scrapfly and Spider support the Model Context Protocol (MCP)?
Scrapfly has native support for MCP servers. Spider fully supports Model Context Protocol integrations.
Which programming languages have official SDKs for Scrapfly vs Spider?
Scrapfly provides official SDKs in: python, typescript, go, curl. Meanwhile, Spider supports: rust, python, typescript.