webclaw vs Zyte
Zyte (formerly Scrapinghub) is an enterprise scraping platform behind Scrapy. Here's how it compares to webclaw on pricing, complexity, and LLM output.
webclaw
Rust / AGPL-3.0
Zyte
Python / Scrapy (enterprise platform) / Open source
webclaw pricing
1 credit = 1 page. No multipliers.
Zyte pricing
Pay per successful request.
Feature comparison
| Feature | webclaw | Zyte |
|---|---|---|
| Scrape (HTML to markdown) | Returns HTML + structured data | |
| Crawl (BFS with depth control) | ||
| Batch (parallel multi-URL) | ||
| Search (web search + scrape) | Google search extraction | |
| Extract (LLM structured data) | Zyte Automatic Extraction | |
| Screenshot (full page) | ||
| Browser actions (click, type, scroll) | ||
| Anti-bot bypass (TLS level) | Smart Proxy Manager (separate) | |
| JS rendering | Yes (Zyte API) | |
| PDF extraction | ||
| MCP server | ||
| CLI tool | Scrapy CLI | |
| Self-hostable | Scrapy yes, platform no | |
| Open source (AGPL-3.0) | Scrapy is BSD-3 | |
| Credit multipliers | None. 1 credit = 1 page. | Different per action type |
Pricing comparison
| Plan | webclaw | Zyte |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 500 pages/mo (renews) | Scrapy is free; Zyte API trial |
| Starter | $49/mo — 10,000 pages | Zyte API pay-as-you-go (~$0.50-2/1k requests) |
| Mid | $99/mo — 100,000 pages | Custom enterprise pricing |
| High | $399/mo — 500,000 pages | Custom enterprise pricing |
webclaw credit model: 1 credit = 1 page, always. No extra charges for JSON extraction, proxies, or JS rendering.
Zyte credit model: Pay per successful request. Different actions (scrape, extract, screenshot) have different costs. Smart Proxy Manager billed separately. Enterprise tiers require sales contact.
Zyte strengths
- Scrapy is the most mature Python scraping framework
- Enterprise-grade with 15+ years of experience
- Automatic Extraction ML models for specific verticals
- Strong proxy infrastructure (Smart Proxy Manager)
- Large Fortune 500 customer base
Zyte limitations
- Enterprise focus: complex pricing, sales-led
- Steep learning curve for Scrapy
- Not designed for LLM/AI agent workflows
- No MCP server or modern AI integrations
- Multiple products to stitch together (Zyte API, Proxy, Automatic Extraction)
- Python only for the open source part
Which one should you use?
Use webclaw when
You're building AI agents or LLM apps, want simple predictable pricing, need MCP integration, or prefer Rust performance over Python + Scrapy complexity.
Use Zyte when
You have a dedicated data engineering team, need enterprise SLAs, have complex long-running scraping pipelines, or already use Scrapy at scale.