8 Best Apify MCP Server Alternatives in 2026 (Free & Paid)
Apify MCP Server is official Apify server: run Apify Store scrapers and web-fetch Actors as agent tools, priced at freemium. If it is too expensive, missing a feature or simply not for you, these are the strongest alternatives we have reviewed.
1
Scrape, crawl and search the web as clean Markdown from your agent
★ 7.5k · +24 this week · MIT · updated 2026-10-02
8.5/10
What it does Firecrawl MCP connects an agent to Firecrawl's web data API. It turns messy web pages into clean Markdown or structured JSON that a model can use directly. A coding agent can use it to scrape a page before copying its layout or content, crawl a site's docs, search the web with full page content in the results,… Read more →
Pros
- Clean Markdown from messy sites
- Crawl, search and extract in one server
- Free monthly credits
Cons
- Paid API beyond the free credits
Pricing: Free plan, paid from $19/mo · scraping search
🔥 Deal: Free plan: 1,000 credits every month, no card needed
2
AI-native web and code search for agents, from Exa
★ 5.1k · +21 this week · MIT · updated 2026-10-02
8.1/10
What it does Exa MCP connects AI agents to Exa, a search engine built for AI. Results come with clean page content, and the agent can read any URL as Markdown. A coding agent can look up current docs, a changelog or a post about an error message, then read the pages instead of guessing. With the optional tools switched… Read more →
Pros
- Great code and docs search
- Free credits
Pricing: Freemium · search
🔥 Deal: $20 free credits for new accounts, plus $10 free every month
3
Real-time web search and extraction built for AI agents
★ 2.4k · +9 this week · MIT · updated 2026-09-29
7.8/10
What it does Tavily MCP connects AI agents to Tavily's search API, which is built for LLMs. It gives the agent real-time web search, content extraction from pages, site mapping and crawling. A coding agent can use it to find a new release, a known bug or an API's latest parameters, then pull the page content into context. You can… Read more →
Pros
- Agent-focused search results
- Free monthly allowance
Pricing: Freemium · search
🔥 Deal: Free plan: 1,000 API credits/month, no credit card required; separate free program for students
4
Local-first MCP server giving coding agents search, crawl, extract and research tools
★ 5.4k · +30 this week · updated 2026-10-02
6.8/10
What it does Wigolo is a local-first "web intelligence" MCP server that gives an AI coding agent one surface for everything web-related — search, fetch, crawl, extract, cache, find-similar, research and autonomous multi-step "gather" loops — instead of the agent shelling out to ad hoc scripts or one-off web-search tools. Tools it gives your agent Per its README: web search… Read more →
Pros
- No API keys or per-query cost needed for its core search/fetch/crawl/extract features; data stays local under ~/.wigolo/
- Broad integration surface: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Antigravity, plus SDK use in LangChain/CrewAI/LlamaIndex/Ve
- Actively developed with ~5.3k stars and 2,000+ commits
Cons
- Still labeled a 'public beta' — less battle-tested than more established MCP servers
- AGPL-3.0-only license is a real consideration for anyone wanting to embed it in a closed-source product
Pricing: Open source · mcp-server web-search crawling local-first research
5
Search, read and cite arXiv papers section by section, including original LaTeX
★ 3.2k · +12 this week · Apache-2.0 · updated 2026-09-30
6.8/10
What it does arxiv-mcp-server, maintained by blazickjp, is a local MCP server for working with arXiv papers from inside an agent. It is built around a reading loop rather than bulk search: take a paper ID, fetch its outline, read one section, then follow citations. Papers are stored on disk, and the server can read the author-submitted LaTeX source section… Read more →
Pros
- Reads original LaTeX one section at a time
- BibTeX export and citation graph tools
- Bounded outputs keep context small
Cons
- Mainly useful for research-heavy work rather than everyday coding
- Paper text is untrusted input that can carry prompt injection
Pricing: Open source · arxiv research citations latex mcp-server
6
Keyless web search and page fetching for agents through DuckDuckGo's HTML results
★ 1.5k · +9 this week · MIT · updated 2026-09-04
6.8/10
What it does DuckDuckGo MCP Server gives a coding agent web search and page reading without needing an API key. It sends queries to DuckDuckGo's HTML search endpoint and returns titles, URLs and snippets in a compact format suited to LLMs. It can then fetch any result page and strip it down to readable text or Markdown. That makes it… Read more →
Pros
- No account or API key needed
- Page fetching with Markdown mode, pagination and SSRF protection
- Built-in rate limiting and caching
Cons
- Scrapes DuckDuckGo's HTML endpoint rather than an official API and uses Chrome TLS impersonation to get past blocking, so it can break or conflict with DuckDuck
Pricing: Open source · web-search duckduckgo web-fetch no-api-key python
7
MCP server for querying South Korea's national legal database with citation verification
★ 2.6k · +12 this week · MIT · updated 2026-10-01
6.5/10
What it does Korean Law MCP wraps 42 APIs from South Korea's Ministry of Government Legislation into 10 unified MCP tools, giving an AI assistant direct, structured access to statutes, court precedents, administrative rulings, ordinances, treaties and official interpretations — with built-in citation verification so the model can't fabricate a law that doesn't exist. Tools it gives your agent -… Read more →
Pros
- Built-in citation verification guards against fabricated legal references
- Broad client support including Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, Zed and VS Code
- Actively maintained with frequent performance releases
Cons
- Niche legal-research tool, not a general coding aid — usefulness is limited outside Korean-law applications
- Requires a separate free API key from a Korean government portal
Pricing: Free · mcp legal korean-law citation-verification claude
8
Real-time web and vertical-domain search MCP server with batch queries and URL content extraction
★ 1.9k · +6 this week · Apache-2.0 · updated 2026-09-17
6.5/10
What it does AnySearch is a remote MCP server that gives an agent real-time search and page reading. It handles open-ended web queries, structured searches across vertical domains such as finance, academic, security, legal and code, batches of independent queries in one call, and full-page content extraction that returns a URL as Markdown. It runs over Streamable HTTP at a… Read more →
Pros
- Web, vertical, batch search and page extraction in one server
- Works anonymously; a key just raises rate limits
- Direct Streamable HTTP, no proxy needed
Cons
- README tells the agent to auto-register an account by email
- Results carry third-party prompt-injection risk
Pricing: Freemium · mcp search web-data vertical-search url-extraction