---
title: ZenRows
slug: zenrows
url: "https://toolweight.com/options/zenrows"
homepage: "https://www.zenrows.com"
categories: browser-automation-apis
last_verified: 2026-07-01
license: CC-BY-4.0
---

# ZenRows

> Scraper API plus a CDP scraping browser on a shared residential pool

ZenRows started as a per-request scraper API and added a Scraping Browser that gives you a real CDP connection, which lets it serve both one-shot fetches and stateful flows. Anti-bot handling, fingerprinting and residential rotation are bundled rather than metered separately at the entry tiers. It undercuts Bright Data noticeably and has closed much of the capability gap.

## Identity

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Name | ZenRows |
| Company | ZenRows |
| One-liner | Scraper API plus a CDP scraping browser on a shared residential pool |
| Site | https://www.zenrows.com |
| Docs | https://docs.zenrows.com |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Funding | Seed |
| Open source | No |
| Compared in | 1 |

## Where it is compared

### [Browser APIs](https://toolweight.com/compare/browser-automation-apis)
Ranked **#10 of 13** on default weights.
| Field | Value | Confidence | Verified | Source | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Anti-bot pass rate | - | Unknown | - | - | Panel not yet run. |
| Stealth mode | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://docs.zenrows.com | - |
| CAPTCHA solving | ● | Inferred | 2026-07-01 | - | - |
| Residential proxy | included | Inferred | - | - | Residential rotation is bundled into the scraper tiers; the standalone proxy product is priced separately. |
| Cold start | - | Unknown | - | - | - |
| CDP endpoint | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://docs.zenrows.com/scraping-browser/introduction | Via the Scraping Browser product, not the classic scraper API. |
| Playwright | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://docs.zenrows.com/scraping-browser/get-started/playwright | - |
| Puppeteer | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://docs.zenrows.com/scraping-browser/get-started/puppeteer | - |
| Session persistence | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Sticky sessions, no profile store. |
| Live view | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Session replay | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Max concurrency | - | Unknown | - | - | - |
| File downloads | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Chrome extensions | - | Unknown | - | - | - |
| Browser regions | global | Inferred | - | - | Country targeting including Australia via proxy geography. |
| Agent API | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| MCP server | - | Unknown | - | - | - |
| Human handoff | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Pricing model | per-credit | Inferred | - | - | Scraper API bills credits per request; the Scraping Browser is metered separately. |
| Per browser-hour | - | Unknown | - | - | - |
| Free tier | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Trial credits. |
| GitHub stars | - | Unknown | - | - | - |
| Funding stage | seed | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Open-source core | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Positioning | Anti-bot scraping API with a CDP browser attached | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Launched | 2021 | Inferred | - | - | - |

**Verdict.** The value pick for unblocking. It does most of what Bright Data does at a visibly lower price, with a simpler console and less enterprise ceremony. You give up the very largest IP pool and the debugging tools, which matters most on the hardest targets and barely at all on the rest.

## Alternatives

- [Airtop](https://toolweight.com/options/airtop), Natural-language browser API, describe the page, skip the selectors
- [Anchor Browser](https://toolweight.com/options/anchor-browser), Cloud browsers built around authenticated sessions and human takeover
- [Apify](https://toolweight.com/options/apify), Actor platform for scraping and agents, with Crawlee as the open-source core
- [Bright Data Browser API](https://toolweight.com/options/bright-data-browser-api), CDP browsers on a 70M+ residential IP network with challenge handling built in
- [Browserbase](https://toolweight.com/options/browserbase), Managed headless browsers for AI agents, with Stagehand as the SDK
- [Browserless](https://toolweight.com/options/browserless), Self-hostable headless Chrome service; BrowserQL for bot-heavy sites
- [Cloudflare Browser Rendering](https://toolweight.com/options/cloudflare-browser-rendering), Puppeteer and Playwright bindings for Workers, plus REST render endpoints
- [Hyperbrowser](https://toolweight.com/options/hyperbrowser), Agent-first browsers with hosted scrape, crawl and CUA endpoints
- [Kernel](https://toolweight.com/options/kernel), Fast-starting browsers plus a runtime for deploying browser agents
- [Self-hosted Playwright](https://toolweight.com/options/playwright-self-hosted), The baseline: run Chromium in your own container and own everything
- [ScrapingBee](https://toolweight.com/options/scrapingbee), One-call HTML API with JavaScript rendering and premium proxy tiers
- [Steel.dev](https://toolweight.com/options/steel-dev), Open-source browser API for AI agents, hosted or self-run

## Licence and attribution

Data from toolweight (https://toolweight.com), licensed CC-BY-4.0.

- Licence: [CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
- Canonical HTML: https://toolweight.com/options/zenrows
- Machine-readable: https://toolweight.com/options/zenrows.md · https://toolweight.com/api/v1 · https://toolweight.com/mcp
- toolweight takes no affiliate revenue and sells no placements. Corrections: https://toolweight.com/suggest