ScrapingBee vs ScraperAPI in 2026

Keep both calls and change two lines

Your ScrapingBee call and your ScraperAPI call keep their parameters and their parsers. Each one changes its address, and both carry the same key.

# ScrapingBee: was https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/
curl -G https://api.specstream.ai/scrapingbee/api/v1/ \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping" \
  --data-urlencode "return_page_markdown=true"

# ScraperAPI: was https://api.scraperapi.com
curl -G https://api.specstream.ai/scraperapi \
  --data-urlencode "api_key=$SPECSTREAM_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping" \
  --data-urlencode "output_format=markdown"

A team that has not chosen yet writes to either format and moves nothing later. The parameter by parameter tables are in the ScrapingBee migration guide and the ScraperAPI migration guide.

What each path reads and returns

On /scrapingbee/api/v1/, url, return_page_markdown, return_page_text, json_response, add_html and transparent_status_code work as on ScrapingBee, and the key goes as Authorization: Bearer or api_key. The site's 404 passes through. Errors come in ScrapingBee's own form: 400 with no url, 401 for a wrong key or no credit.

On /scraperapi, api_key, url and output_format for markdown or text work as on ScraperAPI, and ScraperAPI's Python SDK reaches it through its api_endpoint argument. The site's 404 passes through. Errors come in ScraperAPI's own form: 400 with no url, 401 for a wrong key, 403 with no credit left.

$0.80 per 1,000 pages on every site, from credit that does not expire

On ScrapingBee and ScraperAPI the price of a page depends on the site and the settings: 5 credits for JavaScript rendering on ScrapingBee, 25 for a Google page on ScraperAPI. Unused credits end with the month on both. On SpecStream every page is $0.0008, a page that gives no text is not charged, and a top-up stays in the account until you use it.

Scores published on official benchmarks

The SpecStream Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. The Search API scores a 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions and 64.0 item F1 on all 200 WideSearch tasks. The scores and the method are at specstream.ai/benchmarks.

Zero retention on any key

Set zero_retention when you create a key, or later. A call made with that key keeps no request text and no answer after the reply. The charge keeps the account, the key, the request ID, the price and the time.

curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/account/keys \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "production", "scopes": ["account:read", "finds:spend"], "spend_cap_cents": 500000, "zero_retention": true}'

Search, crawls and rows on the same key

A scraper reads the pages you already know. The same key finds them: the Search API at $5 per 1,000 searches, POST /v1/map for a site's links and POST /v1/crawl for a whole site, each page with text at the page price. Deep Search returns every match on the live web as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, and a saved request reruns hourly to yearly with each row labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching.

ZenRows

A scraping API by monthly credits, from $19 for 45,000, where a JavaScript request always costs 5 credits. SpecStream answers ZenRows' call at https://api.specstream.ai/zenrows/v1, at $0.80 per 1,000 pages.

Scrapfly

Discovery is $30 a month for 200,000 credits, and render_js adds 5 credits a call. SpecStream answers Scrapfly's call at https://api.specstream.ai/scrapfly/scrape, at one price for every page.

Firecrawl

Scrape, crawl and search by monthly credits: Hobby is $19 a month for 5,000 credits, and a 403 or 404 page costs 1 credit. SpecStream answers Firecrawl v2 scrape, map and crawl at https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl, at $0.0008 a page.

Apify

A store of scrapers called Actors, on plans of $0, $19, $199 or $999 a month, where most Actors charge per event at their own price and compute units cost $0.2 on Starter. SpecStream returns the finished rows from a request in plain words, at a price quoted before the run.