webclaw vs ScrapingBee
ScrapingBee is a web scraping API focused on proxy rotation and JavaScript rendering. Here's how it compares to webclaw for content extraction and LLM data pipelines.
webclaw
Rust / MIT
ScrapingBee
Cloud API (proprietary) / Proprietary
webclaw pricing
1 credit = 1 page. No multipliers.
ScrapingBee pricing
Credit-based.
Feature comparison
| Feature | webclaw | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|
| Scrape (HTML to markdown) | Returns raw HTML (no markdown) | |
| Crawl (BFS with depth control) | ||
| Batch (parallel multi-URL) | ||
| Search (web search + scrape) | Google Search API (separate) | |
| Extract (LLM structured data) | AI extraction (beta) | |
| Screenshot (full page) | ||
| Browser actions (click, type, scroll) | Limited (JS snippets) | |
| Anti-bot bypass (TLS level) | Proxy-based (premium proxies) | |
| JS rendering | Yes (5 credits/page) | |
| PDF extraction | ||
| MCP server | ||
| CLI tool | ||
| Self-hostable | ||
| Open source (MIT) | ||
| Credit multipliers | None. 1 credit = 1 page. | Yes. JS rendering 5x, premium proxies 10-75x. |
Pricing comparison
| Plan | webclaw | ScrapingBee |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 500 pages/mo (renews) | 1,000 free API calls (trial) |
| Starter | $49/mo — 10,000 pages | $49/mo — 250,000 credits |
| Mid | $99/mo — 100,000 pages | $99/mo — 1,000,000 credits |
| High | $399/mo — 500,000 pages | $599/mo — 8,000,000 credits |
webclaw credit model: 1 credit = 1 page, always. No extra charges for JSON extraction, proxies, or JS rendering.
ScrapingBee credit model: Credit-based. JS rendering costs 5 credits/page. Premium proxies cost 10-75 credits/page depending on country.
ScrapingBee strengths
- Simple API focused on proxy rotation
- Wide SDK support (6 languages)
- Good for high-volume raw HTML scraping
- Reliable proxy infrastructure
- No infrastructure to manage
ScrapingBee limitations
- Returns raw HTML, not markdown or structured data
- No crawling, batching, or search features
- Aggressive credit multipliers (JS = 5x, premium proxy = 10-75x)
- Not open source, no self-hosting
- No MCP server or CLI tool
- No LLM-optimized output format
Which one should you use?
Use webclaw when
You need clean markdown or structured data (not raw HTML), want built-in crawling and search, need LLM-optimized output, or want to self-host.
Use ScrapingBee when
You just need raw HTML with proxy rotation and don't need content extraction, or your team already has their own HTML-to-content pipeline.
OTHER COMPARISONS