Scraping web.archive.org
web.archive.org requires JA4 HTTP (Tier 0) because the site uses tls fingerprinting (often cloudflare or similar). Cheaper engine tiers fail; this is the cheapest one that actually works.
Why JA4 HTTP wins on web.archive.org
Plain `requests`/`fetch` gets blocked because the TLS handshake doesn't look like a real browser. JA4 (via curl_cffi impersonating Chrome 131) makes the handshake match Chrome — Cloudflare passes it through without ever rendering a browser challenge.
Cost math: at 1 credit per request, scraping web.archive.org costs $0.10–$0.18 per 1,000 requests on the Starter tier. Compare to ScrapingBee ($1.40/1K) or Firecrawl (~$5.33/1K flat). For high-volume workloads on this domain, the credit-based model lands cheaper.
Try web.archive.org in the playground
10 free requests per day, no signup. The router picks the engine — you get clean markdown back.
Other domains we route through JA4 HTTP
Sites with similar protection profiles. Each link goes to its own intel page with real production routing data.