ScraperAPI vs Apify vs Proxies.sx:
Which Scraping Solution in 2026?

Before diving into feature comparisons, it is important to understand that ScraperAPI, Apify, and Proxies.sx represent three fundamentally different approaches to the same problem. Choosing between them is not just about pricing or features; it is about which paradigm fits your team's workflow and technical capabilities.

The distinction matters because it determines your level of control, cost structure, and scaling ceiling. ScraperAPI abstracts everything away at the cost of per-request pricing that scales linearly. Apify gives you more control with its actor system but ties you to platform compute credits. Proxies.sx gives you the most control: you own the scraping logic and pay only for bandwidth or per-request via x402, with costs that decrease at scale.

ScraperAPI was built on a simple premise: developers should not have to manage proxies, solve CAPTCHAs, or handle JavaScript rendering themselves. You make a single API call with a target URL, and ScraperAPI returns the fully rendered HTML. Behind the scenes, it rotates through pools of datacenter and residential proxies, automatically retries failed requests, and handles CAPTCHA challenges.

ScraperAPI Code Example

import requests

API_KEY = "YOUR_SCRAPERAPI_KEY"

# Simple request (1 credit)
response = requests.get(
    "https://api.scraperapi.com",
    params={
        "api_key": API_KEY,
        "url": "https://example.com/products",
    }
)
print(response.text)  # Returns rendered HTML

# JavaScript rendering (10 credits per request)
response = requests.get(
    "https://api.scraperapi.com",
    params={
        "api_key": API_KEY,
        "url": "https://example.com/spa-page",
        "render": "true",
    }
)

# With geotargeting (requires Business+ plan or 10x credits)
response = requests.get(
    "https://api.scraperapi.com",
    params={
        "api_key": API_KEY,
        "url": "https://example.com/products",
        "country_code": "us",
    }
)

The ScraperAPI credit trap: The biggest issue with ScraperAPI's pricing model is the credit multiplier system. A Hobby plan advertises 100,000 credits for $49/month, but if your targets require JavaScript rendering (most modern SPAs do), each request costs 10 credits, reducing your effective capacity to 10,000 requests. Add geotargeting on the lower plans and that drops further. For JS-heavy workloads, the effective cost per request can reach $0.005 or higher, which is comparable to more feature-rich alternatives.

Apify takes a platform approach to web scraping. Rather than providing a single API endpoint, it offers an entire ecosystem: a marketplace of 10,000+ pre-built scrapers (actors), the open-source Crawlee framework for building custom scrapers, cloud infrastructure for running them at scale, and built-in storage for results. Founded in 2015 by Jan Curn and Jakub Balada after participating in Y Combinator Fellowship, Apify has grown into one of the most comprehensive scraping platforms available.

The Apify Store recently surpassed 10,000 actors after a massive growth period. In the Apify $1M Challenge (November 2025 to January 2026), 704 developers published 3,329 new actors, with 1,086 meeting qualifying conditions. The marketplace covers virtually every scraping use case: Amazon product data, Google Maps listings, social media content, real estate listings, job postings, and hundreds more. Developers who publish actors earn revenue when others run them, with Apify taking a 20% commission.

Apify Code Example

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN',
});

// Run a pre-built Google Search actor from the Store
const run = await client.actor('apify/google-search-scraper').call({
    queries: ['web scraping tools 2026'],
    maxPagesPerQuery: 3,
    languageCode: 'en',
    countryCode: 'us',
});

// Fetch results from the dataset
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

// ----- Or build your own with Crawlee -----
import { CheerioCrawler, Dataset } from 'crawlee';

const crawler = new CheerioCrawler({
    async requestHandler({ request, $, enqueueLinks }) {
        const title = $('title').text();
        const prices = $('[data-price]').map((_, el) => $(el).text()).get();

        await Dataset.pushData({
            url: request.url,
            title,
            prices,
        });

        await enqueueLinks({
            globs: ['https://example.com/products/**'],
        });
    },
    maxRequestsPerCrawl: 1000,
});

await crawler.run(['https://example.com/products']);

The Apify ecosystem advantage: Apify's greatest strength is its ecosystem breadth. Need to scrape TikTok? There is an actor for that. Google Maps? Multiple actors compete on features and price. This means you can often find a working solution in minutes without writing a line of code. The Crawlee framework is genuinely excellent: it handles retries, request queuing, proxy rotation, and data storage out of the box. The trade-off is platform lock-in and compute costs that are harder to predict than simple per-GB pricing.

Proxies.sx operates at a different level than ScraperAPI and Apify. Instead of providing a managed scraping service, it provides the underlying proxy infrastructure: real 4G/5G mobile IPs from carrier devices across 17+ countries. What makes it relevant in a scraping tool comparison is the x402 protocol and service marketplace, which enable a new model where third-party developers build and sell scraping services on top of the proxy network, and AI agents can purchase and consume them autonomously.

Proxies.sx Code Examples

import requests

# Direct mobile proxy usage (bandwidth-based pricing)
proxy = {
    "http": "http://user:pass@gate.proxies.sx:port",
    "https": "http://user:pass@gate.proxies.sx:port",
}

# Scrape through a real 4G/5G mobile IP
response = requests.get(
    "https://example.com/products",
    proxies=proxy,
    timeout=30,
)
print(response.text)
print(f"IP used: real carrier CGNAT mobile IP")

from x402 import X402Client

# Initialize x402 client with your USDC wallet
client = X402Client(
    private_key="your_base_wallet_key",
    network="base",
)

# AI agent autonomously purchases proxy access
# No account, no credit card, no registration
session = client.pay_and_access(
    "https://api.proxies.sx/v1/x402/proxy",
    params={"country": "US", "duration": 3600},
)

# Use the provisioned proxy
import requests
response = requests.get(
    "https://example.com/products",
    proxies={"https": session.proxy_url},
)

# Or use the x402 marketplace services directly
# SERP scraping at $0.003/query
serp_results = client.pay_and_access(
    "https://api.proxies.sx/v1/x402/serp",
    params={"query": "web scraping tools", "country": "US"},
)  # Automatically pays $0.003 in USDC

The mobile IP advantage: Where ScraperAPI and Apify use datacenter and residential proxies, Proxies.sx uses real 4G/5G mobile IPs from carrier devices. These IPs are shared via CGNAT among thousands of real mobile users, making them nearly impossible to blacklist. Websites treat mobile traffic with inherently higher trust because blocking a mobile IP would block thousands of legitimate users. This translates to a 92% success rate on major platforms without needing CAPTCHA solvers, because most sites never challenge mobile IPs in the first place.

The table below compares all three platforms across 16 dimensions. Data is sourced from official pricing pages, documentation, and our own testing as of February 2026.

Abstract pricing tiers are hard to compare because each platform uses a different unit of measurement: ScraperAPI charges per API credit, Apify charges per compute credit, and Proxies.sx charges per GB or per request via x402. The table below translates these into concrete scraping scenarios.

The pricing comparison reveals a clear pattern: bandwidth-based pricing (Proxies.sx) becomes dramatically cheaper at scale compared to per-credit or per-compute pricing. The difference is most pronounced for high-volume, simple page scraping where each page consumes minimal bandwidth but costs a full API credit. However, for specialized tasks like SERP scraping, per-query pricing through the x402 marketplace may actually be more expensive than ScraperAPI's credit model, so the best choice depends on your specific workload mix. See our pricing page for current rates.

Two of the three platforms offer developer marketplaces, but they operate on fundamentally different models. The marketplace is where the long-term value of each platform is determined, because it determines how quickly new scraping capabilities are added and how much developers earn for their work.

The marketplace comparison is lopsided today: Apify's 10,000+ actor ecosystem dwarfs the Proxies.sx marketplace's 3 live services. But the economic model is worth watching. The 0% commission on the x402 marketplace means developers keep every dollar they earn, versus 80 cents on the dollar with Apify. Combined with USDC payments that settle instantly on-chain (no waiting for monthly payouts), the x402 model may attract builders who are dissatisfied with the traditional marketplace cut.

Explore the full marketplace at proxies.sx/x402-service-marketplace or browse the live services at agents.proxies.sx/marketplace.

The fastest-growing segment of web scraping in 2026 is not human-driven: it is AI agents autonomously collecting data. This changes what matters in a scraping platform. AI agents need programmatic discovery (finding available services), programmatic purchasing (paying without human intervention), and programmatic execution (running scraping tasks through standardized interfaces).