Distill vs Spider Cloud

Side-by-side comparison of features, pricing, and ratings

Analysis reviewed Live tool data as of 2026-10-18
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At a glance

DimensionDistillSpider Cloud
Best ForLLM agent memory management & context compressionWeb crawling, scraping, and data for AI agents
Core TechnologyDeterministic six-stage pipeline: cache, cluster, select, compress, MMR, summarizeRust engine, stealth anti-detection, rotating proxies, AI extraction
Key FeaturesSemantic dedup, conflict detection, sensitivity tagging, hierarchical decay, supersession, MMRBrowser AI commands (Act, Extract, Observe), 1000+ scraper catalog, data connectors, screenshots
IntegrationsClaude Desktop, Cursor, OpenAI, Ollama, LangChain, LlamaIndex, Pinecone, QdrantLangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, AutoGen, S3, GCS, Supabase
Latest News ImpactNo product updates; news focuses on LLM distillation techniquesBrowser AI commands (Mar 2026), scraper catalog (Feb 2026), data connectors (Feb 2026)

If you need persistent memory for LLM agents and don't want to pay, Distill is perfect—it's free and deterministic. For building AI agents that need real-time web data, Spider Cloud’s low-cost scraping and Browser AI commands win. They're complementary: use Distill for memory and Spider Cloud for web data.

Try DistillTry Spider Cloud
Distill
Distill

Distill trims LLM agent context with deterministic semantic dedup and compression in ~12ms — no LLM calls, same input every time.

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Spider Cloud
Spider Cloud

Spider Cloud is a web scraping, crawling, and search API that streams live pages as markdown or JSON for AI agents and RAG pipelines.

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Pricing
Free
Freemium
Plans
$0
$1/GB + $0.0001/CPU-min
From $6/mo
From $40/mo
Custom
Popularity
14 views
7.5k views
Skill Level
Intermediate
Intermediate
API Available
Platforms
APICLIDesktopPlugin
WebAPIPluginCLIDesktop
Categories
🧠 Agent Memory & Runtimes📦 LLM App Frameworks & SDKs
🌐 Web Scraping & Search APIs🖱️ Browser & Computer-Use Agents
Features
Six-stage deterministic context pipeline: cache, cluster, select, compress, MMR, summarize
~12ms total pipeline overhead with zero LLM calls
Processes 50 chunks in under 2ms via O(n²) distance matrix
POST /v1/pipeline chains all six stages in one call
Semantic dedup clusters chunks conveying the same information in different words
Write-time memory dedup merges entries within 0.15 cosine distance
Conflict detection flags entries between 0.15 and 0.35 cosine distance for supersede
Pattern-based PII and credential sensitivity tagging in under 1ms
Hierarchical memory decay: full text to summary to keywords to eviction
Cross-session persistent memory with store, recall, forget, expire, supersede
Token-budgeted sessions with auto-compression and importance-based eviction
Extractive compression removes noise while preserving signal
Maximal Marginal Relevance re-ranking for relevance plus diversity
MCP server tools for Claude Desktop and Cursor: store_memory, recall_memory, memory_stats, create_session
OpenAPI 3.1 spec with interactive Swagger docs and async Batch API
Scrape a single page into markdown, JSON, HTML, raw, or plain text
Crawl entire sites with each page streamed as one JSONL line in order as it finishes
Web search endpoint returns SERP results plus the scraped pages behind them
Custom browser renders like a user: scripts run, lazy images load, infinite scroll reaches the end
Load protected pages through a real browser engine with geo checks, returning a 200
Run full browser sessions over WebSocket with anti-detection and rotating exits
Send AI commands (Act, Extract, Observe) over the Browser API WebSocket
Send a prompt on a scrape or crawl request and get named fields back as JSON
Two-phase AI extraction: a fast model for most pages, a stronger model for complex layouts
Provider router sends scrape and crawl requests to outside providers on your own keys
Data connectors pipe crawl results into S3, GCS, Google Sheets, Azure Blob, or Supabase
Proxy network with 215M+ residential and ISP exits in 199 countries, rotated per request
MCP server at mcp.spider.cloud for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and Claude Desktop
1,000+ ready-made scraper examples across 32 categories, each with working code
API responses support JSON, JSONL, CSV, and XML; up to 10,000 core API requests per minute by default
Integrations
OpenAI
Anthropic
Ollama
Cohere
Claude (MCP)
Cursor (MCP)
LangChain
LlamaIndex
Pinecone
Qdrant
Prometheus
Grafana
OpenTelemetry
Docker
Fly.io
CrewAI
FlowiseAI
Langflow
Dify
Agno
MCP
Claude Code
Codex
Cursor
Claude Desktop
Amazon S3
Google Cloud Storage
Google Sheets

Who should pick which

  • Solo developer building an AI agent
    Pick: Distill

    Free and open-source, perfect for adding persistent memory and reducing token costs without upfront investment.

  • Data scientist building a RAG pipeline with web sources
    Pick: Spider Cloud

    Low-cost web scraping with structured output; Browser AI commands help extract specific data from complex pages.

  • Startup needing both memory and web data for agent
    Pick: Spider Cloud

    Start with Spider Cloud for data ingestion; complement with Distill for memory (free) once context bloat becomes an issue.

  • Enterprise team with strict compliance needs
    Pick: Distill

    Deterministic pipeline with audit trails and sensitivity tagging helps meet regulatory requirements for data handling.

  • Developer automating browser interactions
    Pick: Spider Cloud

    Browser AI commands (Act, Extract, Observe) via WebSocket enable remote control of browsers; 1000+ scraper catalog speeds development.

Frequently Asked Questions

Distill vs Spider Cloud: which should you choose?

If you need persistent memory for LLM agents and don't want to pay, Distill is perfect—it's free and deterministic. For building AI agents that need real-time web data, Spider Cloud’s low-cost scraping and Browser AI commands win. They're complementary: use Distill for memory and Spider Cloud for web data.

Can Distill and Spider Cloud work together?

Yes. Spider Cloud scrapes web data, then Distill can deduplicate and compress that data before feeding it to an LLM, reducing token waste.

Is Distill really free?

Yes, Distill is open-source and free. You only pay for embedding API calls (e.g., OpenAI) if you don't use a local model like Ollama.

Does Spider Cloud have a free tier?

Spider Cloud offers a free tier with limited credits. After that, it's pay-as-you-go at $0.03 per 1,000 pages. AI Studio add-on is $6/mo.

Which tool is better for reducing LLM costs?

Distill directly reduces token usage by 30-40% through dedup and compression. Spider Cloud reduces cost by being a cheap data source ($0.03/1k pages).

Does Distill support web scraping?

No, Distill only processes input from existing sources. It does not fetch web pages. For that, use Spider Cloud.

Can I self-host Spider Cloud?

Yes, Spider Cloud has an open-source core on GitHub, but the cloud version offers better performance, proxies, and managed infrastructure.

What is the difference between Distill's 'write-time dedup' and 'conflict detection'?

Write-time dedup merges entries with cosine distance <0.15. Conflict detection flags entries between 0.15 and 0.35 as potential contradictions, not merging them.

What are Browser AI commands in Spider Cloud?

They are WebSocket commands: Act (click/type/navigate), Extract (pull structured data), and Observe (describe screen). Requires an AI model, available since March 2026.

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Explore each tool further

Distill
View Distill reviewDistill alternatives
Spider Cloud
View Spider Cloud reviewSpider Cloud alternatives

Browse these categories

Best AI Agent Memory & Runtimes toolsBest AI Web Scraping & Search APIs toolsBest AI LLM App Frameworks & SDKs toolsBest AI Browser & Computer-Use Agents tools
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Last reviewed: July 3, 2026