ScrapingBee compatible

The call, before and after

# Before
curl -G https://app.scrapingbee.com/api/v1/ \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCRAPINGBEE_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping"

# After
curl -G https://api.specstream.ai/scrapingbee/api/v1/ \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_scraping"

With ScrapingBee's Python client, scrapingbee 2.2.0, the change is one line after the client is built: client.HTML_API_URL = "https://api.specstream.ai/scrapingbee/api/v1/", with a SpecStream key as api_key. client.html_api(url) then runs as before.

What the route reads, and what it refuses

Read and applied: url, the key as Authorization: Bearer or api_key, return_page_markdown, return_page_text, json_response, add_html and transparent_status_code. A page the site does not have passes through as its own 404.

Refused, in ScrapingBee's own status and body: no url gets 400, mode=auto together with render_js gets 400, a wrong key or an empty balance gets 401, and a host that does not resolve gets 500 and is not charged. Every parameter was measured on production on Nov 10, 2026, and the full pass table lists each one and its result.

Every field that comes back

By default the body is the page itself with its content-type. With json_response=true the reply has body, initial-status-code, resolved-url, type, and html when you add add_html.

The route does not return the Spb-* response headers, nor headers, cost, cookies, xhr, screenshot, metadata, iframes, evaluate_results and js_scenario_report in the JSON form.

One price a page, and a failed page is free

On ScrapingBee a call costs 1 to 75 credits by the options it uses, and the month's credits do not roll over. On SpecStream every page read costs $0.0008, which is $0.80 per 1,000, a page with no main text is not charged, a failed page is not charged, and a busy call gets 429 with Retry-After and charges nothing. Credit you buy never expires.

Scored on the official benchmarks

The SpecStream Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. The Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 SimpleQA Verified questions, 978 of them correct, and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 WideSearch tasks. Every score and its method is on the benchmarks page.

You decide what is kept, on each key

Create the key with zero_retention and a call made with it keeps no request text and no answer after the reply. spend_cap_cents is the most the key can spend.

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}'

Pages, search and rows on one key

The same key reads up to 20 pages or documents a call with the Extract API, searches the web at $5 per 1,000 searches, and runs Deep Search, which returns every match for a request in plain words as structured rows, at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row, with a source URL on every value. The full comparison is on the ScrapingBee alternative page.

ScraperAPI

A page API on monthly plans: Hobby is $49 a month for 100,000 API credits, and the balance resets when the subscription renews. SpecStream answers ScraperAPI's call at https://api.specstream.ai/scraperapi too, at $0.80 per 1,000 pages.

ZenRows

A page API on monthly plans from $19 for 45,000 credits, where a JavaScript-rendered request always costs 5 credits. SpecStream charges one price a page and answers ZenRows' call at https://api.specstream.ai/zenrows/v1/.

Scrapfly

A page API from $30 a month for 200,000 credits, where browser rendering adds 5 credits a request. SpecStream answers Scrapfly's /scrape call too, and its credit never expires.

Firecrawl

Scrape, search and crawl in credits: Hobby is $19 a month for 5,000 credits. SpecStream answers Firecrawl's v2 calls at https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl, and $19 reads 23,750 pages.