Spicrawl vs Context.dev: which web scraping API fits your project?
Choose Spicrawl for free cache hits and richer browser actions. Choose Context.dev for site crawling, page monitoring, brand data and larger batches.
Context.dev and Spicrawl both turn a URL into clean Markdown for apps and AI agents. Context.dev is the broader product: it also crawls whole sites, monitors pages for changes and returns company data such as logos and colours. Spicrawl is narrower and focused on getting a page back reliably. Here is a fair side-by-side, including where Context.dev is the better choice.
Cached results
Browser actions
Crawl a whole site
Facts about Context.dev were checked against its own website and docs on 29 September 2026. See sources.
Which one should you choose?
Choose Spicrawl if you
- want cached results to cost nothing
- run browser actions, up to 50 steps
- keep logins going with cookies and storage
- want to use your own proxy, with no surcharge
Choose Context.dev if you
- need to crawl a whole site or find its URLs
- need page-change monitoring or brand data
- submit batches of up to 25,000 URLs
- want SDKs in five languages
Spicrawl vs Context.dev at a glance
marks the stronger option for that row. No mark means it is even, or it depends on your needs.
| Feature | Spicrawl | Context.dev |
|---|---|---|
| Price today | SpicrawlFree during betaFree while in beta, with no credit card. Prices after the beta have not been announced. | Context.devFree tier, from $19/mo1,000 free credits a month, no credit card. Paid plans from $19 a month (7,500 credits) to $499 a month (1,000,000 credits), and annual billing saves two months. |
| How requests are billed | Spicrawl1, 3 or 8 creditsPer successful request, by the engine that ran: 1 credit for a plain request, 3 for browser rendering, 8 for full Chromium. | Context.dev1 credit, JS included1 credit for a scrape, with JavaScript rendering, anti-bot bypass and proxies included. JSON extraction adds 4, and browser actions make it 2. |
| Blocked and failed requests | SpicrawlFree, incl. 403sErrors, bot challenges and timeouts cost 0. A page that answers with a status such as 403 also costs 0. | Context.devMostly free; 404 billedMost failed requests are not billed. A target page that answers 404 is billed. |
| Cached results | SpicrawlStronger option: FreeFree. The cache is on by default and keeps results for up to 48 hours. | Context.devBilled as normalBilled at the normal price. The cache keeps results for 3 days by default, up to a year, and makes requests faster, not cheaper. |
| Output formats | SpicrawlMarkdown, HTML, JSON, PDFMarkdown, HTML, text, PDF, JSON and screenshots. | Context.devMarkdown, HTML, JSON +filesMarkdown, HTML, screenshots, images, JSON and product data, plus file parsing for PDFs and Office documents. |
| Structured data | SpicrawlSelectors + schema freePage metadata, CSS selector maps and JSON Schema at no extra cost. Extraction with a model prompt is coming soon. | Context.devJSON extraction, +4 creditsJSON extraction with a schema, for 4 extra credits, and CSS-selected fields. |
| Browser actions | SpicrawlStronger option: Up to 50 stepsClick, type, select, scroll, wait and run JavaScript, up to 50 steps per request, on the free beta. | Context.devUp to 5, paid plans onlyUp to 5 actions per request: natural-language instructions, scroll and wait. Paid plans only. |
| Crawl a whole site | SpicrawlNoNo. Spicrawl does not follow links for you: you send the URLs. | Context.devStronger option: Yes, up to 500 pagesYes. A crawl follows links from a start URL and returns Markdown for up to 500 pages, and a map endpoint finds a site’s URLs. |
| Many URLs | SpicrawlUp to 10,000 URLsBatch API: up to 10,000 URLs per call, run in parallel, with results as JSON Lines kept for 72 hours. | Context.devStronger option: Up to 25,000 URLsBatch jobs of up to 25,000 URLs, or a crawl, but they return Markdown or HTML only, with no screenshots, JSON or actions. |
| Monitoring and other data | SpicrawlNoNo. Spicrawl fetches pages. | Context.devStronger option: Monitors, brand dataYes. Change monitors with webhooks, web search, and company data such as logos, colours and fonts. |
| Proxies | SpicrawlBYO, no surchargeBring your own proxy with no surcharge. Managed proxies are coming soon. | Context.devStronger option: Managed, always onManaged proxies are always on, with country selection. Using your own proxy is not described in its documentation. |
| Staying logged in | SpicrawlSessionsSessions keep cookies, browser storage and the same exit IP between requests. | Context.devNot documentedNo session feature is described. You can send your own cookie or authorization headers to the target. |
| AI agents | SpicrawlMCP, 25 tools + skillHosted MCP server with 25 tools, an agent skill, and one-command setup for Claude Code, Cursor and Codex. | Context.devMCP (OAuth) + skillHosted MCP server that signs in with OAuth instead of an API key, plus an agent skill. |
| SDKs and CLI | SpicrawlJS/TS SDK + CLIJavaScript and TypeScript SDK, a CLI, and HTTP examples in cURL, Python and TypeScript. | Context.devStronger option: 5 SDK languages + CLISDKs for TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Go and PHP, and a CLI. |
Switching from Context.dev
Both take a URL and an output format in one POST request. The main difference is the response: Context.dev wraps the Markdown in a JSON object, while Spicrawl returns the Markdown itself as the response body. Ask for response_format=json when you want a JSON envelope instead.
curl https://api.context.dev/v1/web/scrape \ --request POST \ --header "Authorization: Bearer $CONTEXT_DEV_API_KEY" \ --header "Content-Type: application/json" \ --data '{ "url": "https://example.com/blog/post", "formats": { "markdown": true }, "sharedParams": { "mainContentOnly": true } }'# Response: JSON, with the page under markdown.datacurl -X POST https://api.spicrawl.com/v1/scrape \ -H "Authorization: Bearer spicrawl_live_…" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "url": "https://example.com/blog/post", "response_format": "markdown", "main_content_only": true }'# Response: the Markdown itselfSpicrawl vs Context.dev: common questions
Is Spicrawl a good Context.dev alternative?
It is if you scrape pages you already have URLs for, and you want cached results to be free, sessions for logged-in pages, or your own proxies with no surcharge. If you need Context.dev’s site crawling, change monitoring or company data, Context.dev is the better fit.
Is Spicrawl cheaper than Context.dev?
Spicrawl is free while it is in beta, and its prices after the beta have not been announced, so a fair price comparison is not possible yet. The billing rules differ today: Spicrawl charges nothing for cache hits, while Context.dev bills them at the normal price.
Does Context.dev charge for cached results?
Yes. Its documentation says the base price applies to cache hits as well, so caching makes a request faster but not cheaper. On Spicrawl, a result served from the cache costs nothing.
Can Spicrawl crawl a whole website like Context.dev?
No. Spicrawl does not discover URLs by following links. You send the pages you want, one at a time or up to 10,000 per batch call. Context.dev’s crawl and map endpoints do the discovery for you.
How do I switch from Context.dev to Spicrawl?
Send a POST to https://api.spicrawl.com/v1/scrape with your Spicrawl API key and set response_format to markdown in place of formats. Spicrawl returns the Markdown as the response body, so read the body directly, or ask for response_format=json to get a JSON envelope.
Sources
Context.dev details come from these pages, checked on 29 September 2026. Products change: if something here is out of date, email support@spicrawl.com and we will correct it.
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