Crawlbase MCP
Official Crawlbase MCP server enabling AI agents to use Crawlbase's web scraping and crawling API — fetching web pages through residential/datacenter proxies, bypassing anti-bot protection, extracting structured data from websites, and integrating web data collection into agent-driven research and automation workflows.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
HTTPS enforced. API token auth. Official Crawlbase MCP. Keep token secure — usage-based billing means leaks are costly. ToS compliance responsibility on user.
⚡ Reliability
Best When
An agent needs to scrape web data at scale while bypassing anti-bot protections — Crawlbase provides managed proxy rotation and browser fingerprinting to make scraping reliable.
Avoid When
Your scraping needs are simple and sites don't block bots — use a simpler HTTP fetch tool. For complex JS-rendered sites, verify Crawlbase's JS tier pricing first.
Use Cases
- • Scraping web pages while bypassing bot detection from data collection agents
- • Extracting structured data from e-commerce, news, and business sites from research agents
- • Crawling websites through residential proxies for data gathering from automation agents
- • Monitoring website content changes from watch agents
- • Gathering competitive intelligence from public web sources from market research agents
Not For
- • Accessing sites that prohibit scraping in their ToS without verifying permission
- • Real-time high-frequency crawling without paid plan (rate limits apply)
- • Teams needing JavaScript rendering without paying for Crawlbase's JS rendering tier
Interface
Authentication
Crawlbase API token required. Two token types: normal token (for static HTML pages) and JavaScript token (for JS-rendered pages). Set CRAWLBASE_API_TOKEN environment variable.
Pricing
Usage-based pricing. Free credits for new accounts. JS rendering costs significantly more than static HTML. Monitor usage carefully in agent loops.
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ Cost accumulates quickly in agent loops — implement request budgets and monitoring
- ⚠ JavaScript token is much more expensive than normal token — use selectively
- ⚠ Some sites may still block even with Crawlbase proxies — not a guarantee
- ⚠ Response time varies significantly (seconds) for JS rendering — account for this in agent timeouts
- ⚠ Official MCP from Crawlbase (commercial service) — reliable but not free
- ⚠ ToS compliance is the user's responsibility — verify target site allows scraping
Alternatives
Full Evaluation Report
Detailed scoring breakdown, competitive positioning, security analysis, and improvement recommendations for Crawlbase MCP.
Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-06.