MetaScrape vs Microlink
Microlink is a powerful browser-as-a-service platform. MetaScrape is a focused metadata extraction API. If you need OG tags, titles, and favicons — not screenshots or PDFs — here is how they compare.
| Feature | MetaScrape | Microlink |
|---|---|---|
| OG tags (title, description, image) | Yes | Yes |
| Twitter Card tags | Yes | Yes |
| Favicon extraction | Yes | Yes |
| Canonical URL + language detection | Yes | Partial |
| JSON-LD structured data | Yes | No |
| Screenshot capture | No | Yes |
| PDF generation | No | Yes |
| Lighthouse performance scores | No | Yes |
| Node.js + Python SDKs | Yes | Yes |
| Available on RapidAPI | Yes | No |
| Free tier | 100 req/mo | 50 req/day |
| Entry paid plan | $9/mo (1K req) | $15.99/mo (10K req) |
| Mid-tier plan | $29/mo (10K req) | $79.99/mo (100K req) |
| Simple one-endpoint API | Yes | No (multi-param) |
Pricing comparison
- Free $0 — 100 req/mo
- Hobby $9/mo — 1,000 req
- Growth $29/mo — 10,000 req
- Business $79/mo — 100,000 req
- Free $0 — 50 req/day
- Pro $15.99/mo — 10K req
- Business $79.99/mo — 100K req
- Enterprise Custom
Pricing verified February 2026. Check vendor sites for current rates.
Why choose MetaScrape
Microlink can take screenshots, generate PDFs, and run Lighthouse audits. That power comes at a cost — a more complex API and a higher price. MetaScrape does one thing: extract titles, OG tags, Twitter Cards, favicons, canonical URLs, language, and JSON-LD structured data. If that is what you need, MetaScrape is the right-sized tool.
One endpoint. One header. No selectors, no browser configuration, no pagination of results. The MetaScrape response is a clean, consistent JSON object. Most developers have a working link preview in under ten minutes. Microlink's power is real — but only useful if you need it.
At the mid tier, MetaScrape costs $29/mo for 10,000 requests. Microlink's equivalent is $79.99/mo. If your use case is link previews, social cards, or metadata enrichment — not screenshots — you are paying for features you will never use with Microlink.
The API is one call
No selectors. No browser options. Pass a URL, get back structured metadata. Here is everything you need to build a link preview card:
const res = await fetch(
'https://api.shanecode.org/v1/extract' +
'?url=https://github.com',
{ headers: { 'X-API-Key': 'msk_your_key' } }
);
const { data } = await res.json();
// Everything you need:
data.title // "GitHub: Let's build from here"
data.og.image // "https://..."
data.favicon // "https://github.com/favicon.ico"
data.twitter.card // "summary_large_image"
data.language // "en"
data.structured_data // JSON-LD array{
"data": {
"url": "https://github.com",
"domain": "github.com",
"title": "GitHub: Let's build from here",
"description": "GitHub is where over 100...",
"canonical_url": "https://github.com",
"favicon": "https://github.com/favicon.ico",
"language": "en",
"og": { "title": "...", "image": "...",
"type": "website" },
"twitter": { "card": "summary_large_image",
"site": "@github" },
"structured_data": [...],
"response_time_ms": 245
}
}When Microlink is the better choice
Microlink is a mature, well-engineered product. If your project needs any of the following, you should seriously consider it over MetaScrape:
- → You need to capture full-page screenshots or generate PDF snapshots of pages
- → You want Lighthouse performance/accessibility scores alongside metadata
- → You need to interact with JavaScript-heavy SPAs that require a real browser engine
- → You are building a product where browser automation is core to your workflow
If you only need metadata extraction — and most link-preview use cases do — MetaScrape gives you a simpler API, a lower price, and no features you will never touch.
The bottom line
Microlink is a browser-as-a-service platform — powerful, multi-featured, and priced accordingly. MetaScrape is a URL metadata extraction API — focused, lean, and built for developers who need OG tags, Twitter Cards, favicons, and JSON-LD without running a headless browser. If you are building link previews, enriching content feeds, or scraping metadata at scale, MetaScrape gets you there faster and cheaper. Free tier, no credit card, API key in 30 seconds.
Start free — no credit card required
Free tier: 100 requests/month. Hobby plan from $9/mo.