ScraperAPI is a managed scraping API: send a URL, and it returns HTML with proxies, rotation, and optional JavaScript rendering bundled in. Aethyn is the proxy layer itself — residential IPs billed per GB — for teams that run their own scrapers and want full control over fingerprints, retries, and cost.
ScraperAPI is a web scraping API, not a proxy network: you send it a URL and it returns the page HTML, bundling proxies, rotation, retries, and optional JavaScript rendering into one credit-based subscription. For a small team that wants data without operating any scraping infrastructure, that is a real product and a fair choice — the free tier (1,000 credits/month) is a genuine trial. The trade-off surfaces at scale and on protected targets. Requests cost 1 credit on simple sites but 10 with rendering, 25 on Google, and up to 75 with ultra-premium proxies plus rendering — so a plan's sticker credits overstate real capacity by up to 75×, and unused credits expire monthly. Aethyn sells the underlying proxy bandwidth instead: €2.90/GB entry on Premium residential, metered per byte, never expiring on pay-as-you-go, with your own stack (Playwright, Scrapy, plain requests) keeping full control of headers, fingerprints, and parsing.
02
Flat per-GB vs credit multipliers
ScraperAPI's sticker credit counts look generous until multipliers stack. A basic fetch is 1 credit; JavaScript rendering adds 10; premium pools and Google SERPs jump to 25; ultra-premium plus render can hit 75 credits per request. On a Business plan that math turns "3M credits" into far fewer real pages — and unused credits still expire each cycle. Aethyn bills flat per GB: Premium from €2.90/GB, Elite for hardened targets, PAYG that never expires. Rendering stays in your Playwright or Puppeteer client on the same proxy, with no per-request surcharge for JS. Keep ScraperAPI for occasional 1-credit targets where you never want a proxy string. Move sustained or protected volume to per-GB residential when credit math starts owning the invoice.
03
Feature matrix
How Aethyn and ScraperAPI line up on the decisions that matter at purchase time.
Feature
Aethyn
ScraperAPI
Product type
Residential proxy network
Managed scraping API
Billing unit
Per GB transferred
Per request (1–75 credits)
Protected-target cost
Same per-GB rate (Elite pool)
Up to 75 credits/request
Entry price
€29 for 10 GB, self-serve
$49/mo Hobby (100k credits)
Expiry
PAYG bandwidth never expires
Credits expire each billing cycle
JS rendering
Your own Playwright/Puppeteer via proxy
Built in (+10 credits/req)
Concurrency
Unlimited threads
5–200 threads by plan
Control
Full client-side stack
Abstracted behind the API
04
Pricing models
As of August 14, 2026. We compare structure — expiry, multipliers, minimums — not a unit-price scoreboard. Aethyn pricing · ScraperAPI pricing
Aethyn
Per-GB bandwidth, subscription or pay-as-you-go
Premium residential from €2.90/GB entry down to €2.00/GB at 90+ GB/month — 10 GB subscription is €29
Elite residential from €6.50/GB down to €4.50/GB at volume, for hardened anti-bot targets
Cost scales with bytes transferred — a heavy page costs the same whether or not it needed rendering logic
Pay-as-you-go bandwidth never expires; per-byte metering with live dashboard usage
Bring your own rendering (Playwright/Puppeteer) — no per-request surcharge for JS-heavy targets
ScraperAPI
Monthly credit subscriptions; 1–75 credits per request
Free tier: 1,000 credits/month (5 concurrent threads) — a genuine trial, not a workload
Credit multipliers per request: 1 base, +10 for JS rendering, 10 for premium proxies, 25 for premium + render, 25 on Google SERPs, 30 on LinkedIn, up to 75 for ultra-premium + render
Effective cost at 75 credits/request on the Business plan works out to roughly $7.48 per 1,000 pages
Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle
Methodology: Aethyn figures are from our published pricing page. Competitor claims reflect their public materials as of August 14, 2026 (source). Where a public rate is not verifiable we say so. See also how we measure quality.
05
Network & pool
Aethyn
85M+ residential IPs across 195+ countries, sourced from consented, KYC-verified peers
Two explicit pools: Premium (99.2% success rate) and Elite (99.9%, curated high-reputation ISP exits)
Country targeting on both tiers; city, ISP, and ASN targeting on Elite
HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 on dedicated ports from one credential set
ScraperAPI
Proxies are bundled and abstracted — you do not choose or see the pool
Standard and premium proxy tiers, plus ultra-premium for hardened domains (10–30 credits/request)
Geotargeting: US & EU on Hobby/Startup; global country targeting from Business up
Optional JavaScript rendering and structured-data endpoints for major sites
06
Sessions & targeting
Aethyn
Rotation is per request by default; a session-<id> username suffix pins one sticky residential IP for 30 minutes, extensible to 24 hours. Sticky identity is free — it is part of the proxy, not a metered feature — so multi-step flows (login, cart, paginate) cost the same per GB as stateless ones.
ScraperAPI
ScraperAPI offers session stickiness via a session_number parameter, holding the same proxy for a conversation. Because every request through the API is metered in credits, a rendered multi-step flow on a premium pool can burn 25–75 credits per step — sticky sessions are supported, but the cost model punishes chatty workflows.
The two integrations are fundamentally different shapes. ScraperAPI replaces your HTTP client with its API endpoint — you stop managing proxies entirely. Aethyn keeps your client and swaps the egress: anything that speaks HTTP proxy auth (requests, Scrapy, Playwright, curl) works with one config line. Teams also combine them — some keep ScraperAPI for long-tail JS-heavy pages and route bulk traffic through Aethyn.
Aethyn — Python requests
import requests
username = "aethyn-d9e2c-country-us-session-a3xq-lifetime-30"
proxy = "http://" + username + ":YOUR_PROXY_PASSWORD@proxy.aethyn.io:2099"
resp = requests.get(
"https://example.com/products",
proxies={"http": proxy, "https": proxy},
timeout=30,
)
print(resp.status_code) # you keep the bytes, the parsing, and the control
ScraperAPI — Python requests
import requests
resp = requests.get(
"https://api.scraperapi.com",
params={
"api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
"url": "https://example.com/products",
"render": "true", # +10 credits per request
"premium": "true", # premium pool: 10 credits (25 with render)
},
timeout=60,
)
print(resp.status_code) # HTML in resp.text — proxies handled for you
Flat per-GB pricing — no multipliers for protected or JS-heavy targets
PAYG bandwidth never expires
Full control of headers, fingerprints, retries, and parsing in your own code
Username-encoded country, city, ISP, and session targeting
Unlimited concurrent threads on every plan
Where ScraperAPI is strong
True zero-infrastructure model: URL in, HTML out
Free tier (1,000 credits/month) for evaluation
Optional JS rendering and structured-data endpoints for major sites
Simple onboarding — one API key, no proxy configuration at all
08
Trade-offs with ScraperAPI
Credit multipliers (up to 75×) make real capacity far lower than the sticker number
Unused credits expire monthly
You do not control the proxy pool, fingerprints, or retry logic
Per-request pricing on protected targets can exceed per-GB proxy cost by an order of magnitude
Choose ScraperAPI if
Small teams or solo builders who want page HTML without running any scraping infrastructure, on targets that stay in the 1-credit band.
Choose Aethyn if
Engineering teams running sustained volume who want cost per GB (not per request), full client-side control, and bandwidth that never expires.
09
Switch from ScraperAPI in three steps
01
Create account / credentials
Inventory which ScraperAPI targets use render, premium, or ultra_premium — those flags drive credit burn. Create Aethyn Premium for unprotected targets and Elite where you needed ultra-premium proxies.
02
Configure targeting
Replace the API call with a direct request through proxy.aethyn.io:2099 (SOCKS5 1099; Elite 5499/3499). For rendered pages, route Playwright or Puppeteer through the same proxy — keep rendering, drop the per-request multiplier.
03
Connect & cut over
Run both paths against a fixed 100-URL basket for a week; compare success rate and cost per successful page before cancelling the credit plan.
ScraperAPI sells convenience: credits in, HTML out, no infrastructure. Aethyn sells the underlying proxy bandwidth with full control and flat per-GB pricing. For sustained or protected-target volume, per-GB proxies with your own stack almost always win on cost per successful page — for occasional, unprotected scraping where you never want to see a proxy string, ScraperAPI is a fair price for the simplicity.
12
Frequently asked questions
Is Aethyn a ScraperAPI alternative?
They solve different layers of the problem. ScraperAPI is a managed scraping API that returns page HTML for a per-request credit fee. Aethyn is the residential proxy layer for teams running their own scrapers. If you are comfortable operating requests, Scrapy, or Playwright, Aethyn is the cheaper and more controllable foundation; if you never want to touch proxy config, a scraping API like ScraperAPI is the simpler buy.
How do ScraperAPI credits compare to per-GB proxy pricing?
ScraperAPI charges 1 credit per basic request, but multipliers stack fast: +10 for JS rendering, 25 for premium proxies with rendering, and up to 75 for ultra-premium with rendering. On the Business plan ($299/mo, 3M credits), a protected rendered page costs about $7.48 per 1,000 pages. Aethyn charges per GB transferred — the rate does not change because a target is protected or needs rendering.
Can I use Aethyn with my own headless browser?
Yes — that is the intended stack. Point Playwright, Puppeteer, or Selenium at proxy.aethyn.io and you get JavaScript rendering plus residential IPs at a flat per-GB rate, with no per-request rendering surcharge.
When should I choose ScraperAPI over Aethyn?
Choose ScraperAPI when you scrape occasionally, your targets sit in the 1-credit band, and you do not want to operate any scraping infrastructure. Choose Aethyn when volume is sustained, targets are protected (where credit multipliers bite), or you need control over fingerprints, sessions, and parsing.
Do ScraperAPI credits expire?
Yes — unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. Aethyn's pay-as-you-go bandwidth never expires, so a quiet month does not burn prepaid capacity.
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“ScraperAPI” and related marks are trademarks of their respective owners. Comparisons on this page are for informational purposes only and do not imply affiliation, endorsement, or partnership.
