OpenGraph.io alternative
The best OpenGraph.io alternatives
OpenGraph.io is a cheap, fast way to get Open Graph data at volume. Here is when a different API fits better, and when it doesn't.
By Roger Campos · Last updated: September 2026
TL;DR
For raw Open Graph lookups at high volume, OpenGraph.io is hard to beat on price — 1 credit a lookup. Look at URLpipe when you want the page's tags reconciled into one clean record by a model, plus a full-page screenshot, Markdown or a summary from the same visit, free cache hits and EU processing. Microlink is the middle ground.
Free plan, no credit card. 1,000 credits a month.
Why switch
Why people look for an OpenGraph.io alternative
- Options add up. JavaScript rendering is +10 credits, a residential proxy +20, a screenshot 20 and an AI query 100 or more.
- Cache hits cost a credit. A cached response is 1 credit whatever the endpoint.
- A small free plan. 100 requests with one concurrent.
- Raw tags. It returns openGraph, htmlInferred and a merged hybridGraph; deciding which value to trust is left to you.
The difference
Tags as found vs a reconciled record
OpenGraph.io reports what the tags say, merged into a best guess. URLpipe's /meta reads the page's meta tags, JSON-LD and microdata and returns one record with the same keys on every page: title, description, site name, language, authors, dates, share image, icons, feeds and more, with URLs made absolute — and the raw og: and twitter: tags alongside. It costs 1 credit, the same as OpenGraph.io's lookup.
{
"final_url": "https://example.com/blog/launch-week",
"canonical_url": "https://example.com/blog/launch-week",
"title": "Everything we shipped in launch week",
"description": "Five days, five releases: what's new and why it matters.",
"site_name": "Example Blog",
"type": "article",
"language": "en",
"locale": "en-US",
"authors": [
{
"name": "Jane Doe",
"url": "https://example.com/authors/jane",
"profiles": [
"https://x.com/janedoe"
]
}
],
"published_at": "2026-09-01T08:00:00+00:00",
"modified_at": "2026-09-03T14:30:00+00:00",
"image": {
"url": "https://example.com/images/launch-week.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"height": 630,
"alt": "The team on stage",
"type": "image/jpeg"
},
"video": null,
"favicon_url": "https://example.com/favicon.ico",
"icons": [
{
"url": "https://example.com/favicon.ico",
"rel": "icon",
"sizes": "32x32",
"type": null
},
{
"url": "https://example.com/apple-touch-icon.png",
"rel": "apple-touch-icon",
"sizes": "180x180",
"type": null
}
],
"logo_url": "https://example.com/logo.svg",
"feeds": [
{
"url": "https://example.com/feed.xml",
"type": "application/rss+xml",
"title": "Example Blog"
}
],
"keywords": [
"launch",
"product"
],
"theme_color": "#0f172a",
"generator": "WordPress 6.6",
"manifest_url": "https://example.com/site.webmanifest",
"robots": {
"index": true,
"follow": true
},
"open_graph": {
"title": "Everything we shipped in launch week",
"description": "Five days, five releases.",
"image": "https://example.com/images/launch-week.jpg",
"url": "https://example.com/blog/launch-week",
"type": "article",
"site_name": "Example Blog",
"locale": "en_US"
},
"twitter": {
"card": "summary_large_image",
"site": "@example",
"creator": "@janedoe",
"title": null,
"description": null,
"image": null
},
"alternates": [
{
"hreflang": "es",
"url": "https://example.com/es/blog/launch-week"
}
],
"oembed_url": "https://example.com/wp-json/oembed/1.0/embed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fblog%2Flaunch-week",
"structured_data_types": [
"BlogPosting",
"Organization"
]
}Migration
Moving a call
curl "https://opengraph.io/api/3.0/site/https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com?app_id=$OG_APP_ID"curl -X POST https://urlpipe.dev/meta \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $URLPIPE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "https://example.com/post", "sync": true}'Need a preview image for a page with no og:image? /scrape takes ["meta", "screenshot"] off one visit, so the fallback image comes from the same load.
Billing
Repeat lookups
Link previews are mostly repeats: the same popular URLs, pasted again and again. On OpenGraph.io a cached response costs 1 credit (its cache holds results for five days by default). On URLpipe it costs nothing — a result served from cache costs nothing (max_age defaults to 7 days, up to 30); an identical request that arrives while the first is still running waits for it and costs nothing; an Idempotency-Key makes a retry return the first result; and bot checks we couldn't clear, target 4xx/5xx pages and robots.txt refusals are never billed.
Side by side
URLpipe and OpenGraph.io, feature by feature
| Capability | URLpipe | OpenGraph.io |
|---|---|---|
| Clean Markdown from a URL | Yes | Yes |
| Renders JavaScript (real browser) | Yes | +10 credits |
| Rendered HTML | Yes | Yes |
| Screenshots | Yes | Yes |
| Full-page screenshots | Yes | Yes |
| Element, dark-mode and hidden-selector screenshots | Yes | — |
| Metadata / Open Graph | Yes | Yes |
| AI summary | Yes | Partial |
| Keyword extraction endpoint | Yes | — |
| Lighthouse audits | Yes | — |
| JavaScript console capture | Yes | — |
| Technology detection | Yes | — |
| Several outputs from one page visit | /scrape | — |
| Whole-site crawling | No | — |
| Schema-based structured extraction | /extract | Partial |
| PDF input or output | Input, no OCR | — |
| MCP server | Hosted | Hosted, or npm |
| Async + webhook for a single URL | Yes | — |
| Idempotency key on retries | Yes | — |
| Your own labels on requests, usage by label | Yes | — |
| Cached results cost nothing | Yes | No |
| Residential-IP fetching | One exit, +25 credits/visit | +20 credits |
| Official SDKs | Python, JavaScript, Ruby, Go | Node, Ruby |
| Self-hostable | No | — |
| Free tier | 1,000 credits/mo | 100 requests |
| EU processing, AI included | Yes | — |
OpenGraph.io: checked against opengraph.io/pricing, opengraph.io/docs/concepts/credits, opengraph.io/docs/api, opengraph.io/docs/mcp on September 24, 2026. Products change — confirm on each vendor's site before you decide.
Pricing
What each one costs
| URLpipe | OpenGraph.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | $0 — 1,000 credits/mo, no card | $0 — 100 requests, 1 concurrent |
| Entry paid plan | Starter $19/mo — 20,000 credits | Developer $25/mo — 50,000 credits |
| Mid plan | Pro $49/mo — 55,000 credits | Production $100/mo — 250,000 credits |
| Billing unit | Credits per call: Markdown, HTML, screenshot or console 1, Lighthouse 2, metadata 1 | Credits: 1 per metadata lookup, 20 per screenshot, +10 for JavaScript |
| Overage | Paid plans never cut off — $1.50 per 1,000 credits | $1 per 1,000 credits on Developer, billed at cycle end |
| Cache hits | Free, up to 30 days old | 1 credit |
OpenGraph.io's Developer plan is $25 for 50,000 credits. URLpipe's 1,000 credits a month is 1,000 metadata calls; Pro at $49 is 55,000.
Who it's for
An honest recommendation
Choose URLpipe if…
- You want one reconciled record rather than raw tags
- You want a screenshot, Markdown or summary from the same visit
- You want cache hits free and every page rendered in a real browser
- Your agent should unfurl links over MCP
- You need processing kept in the EU
Choose OpenGraph.io if…
- You look up Open Graph tags at high volume and want the lowest price per call
- Raw tags are exactly what you need
- You want AI-generated images for previews
- You want prepaid credits that never expire
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is URLpipe a good OpenGraph.io alternative?
How much does OpenGraph.io cost?
Try URLpipe on the free plan.
1,000 credits a month, no card. Confirm your email and your key is live — most people make their first request inside five minutes.