Crawl4AI vs Zyte API
Crawl4AI is an Open source, while Zyte API is a Scraping API. Crawl4AI fits best for: Python developers who want a free, self-hosted crawler for RAG/agent pipelines and full control over the stack. Zyte API fits best for: Python/Scrapy teams that want a reliable unblocking API and pay-per-success billing.
| Crawl4AI | Zyte API | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Open source | Scraping API |
| Starting price | $10/mo | Pay as you go |
| Free tier | Library and self-hosting free (Apache-2.0); Crawl4AI Cloud includes 1,000 free credits/month (10 req/min) | $5 free credit valid for 30 days |
| Pricing model | free/self-hosted; cloud uses credits | per 1K successful responses, tiered by site difficulty |
| AI extraction | ||
| Structured JSON | ||
| JS rendering | ||
| Proxies / anti-bot | ||
| API | ||
| No-code UI | ||
| Open source | ||
| MCP server | ||
| Best for | Python developers who want a free, self-hosted crawler for RAG/agent pipelines and full control over the stack. | Python/Scrapy teams that want a reliable unblocking API and pay-per-success billing. |
| Visit Crawl4AI | Visit Zyte API |
Why choose Crawl4AI
- LLM extraction via any LiteLLM provider, plus CSS/XPath/regex
- Clean and 'fit' markdown output
- Playwright browser control, stealth, sessions, proxies
- Deep crawling strategies (BFS/DFS/best-first)
Watch out for
- You run and maintain the browsers and proxies yourself
- No built-in residential proxy network or managed unblocking
- LLM extraction costs depend on your own model provider
Why choose Zyte API
- Automatic ban handling and proxy rotation
- Browser rendering and actions
- AI-powered automatic extraction for products, articles, jobs etc.
- Native Scrapy integration and Scrapy Cloud hosting
Watch out for
- Per-site tier pricing makes costs hard to estimate upfront
- Browser rendering on hard sites gets expensive (up to ~$16/1K PAYG)
- Best value requires a monthly commitment
Our product
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