Skip to content
Free AI audit

Firecrawl

Open Source

by Mendable

★ 4.6 (189 reviews)

Firecrawl is an open-source web-scraping API that converts websites into LLM-ready data, with a free cloud tier.

Try Firecrawl free

Self-hosting is free. The hosted API includes a free credit allowance, then usage-based pricing.

Visit Firecrawl →

We may earn a commission from this link, at no extra cost to you. Disclosure.

Last reviewed

★

Best for

Teams that want managed, LLM-ready scraping with the option to self-host for free.

What is Firecrawl?

Firecrawl crawls entire sites and returns clean Markdown or structured JSON for AI applications. It handles JavaScript, proxies, and rate limits for you. It is open-source for self-hosting and offers a hosted API with a free credit allowance to start.

Key features

  • ▹Whole-site crawl
  • ▹Markdown + JSON output
  • ▹Handles JS & proxies
  • ▹Self-hostable
  • ▹Hosted API
  • ▹SDKs for Python/Node

Pros

  • +Managed convenience
  • +Open-source option
  • +Clean LLM output
  • +Good SDKs

Cons

  • −Hosted free credits are limited
  • −Self-hosting needs setup

Firecrawl pricing

Free tier: Self-hosting is free. The hosted API includes a free credit allowance, then usage-based pricing.

Self-hosted

Free

  • ▹Open-source core
  • ▹Unlimited

Cloud Free

Free

  • ▹Free credits
  • ▹Hosted API

How to get started with Firecrawl

  1. 1 Get an API key or self-host via Docker
  2. 2 Install the SDK
  3. 3 Call crawl/scrape on a URL
  4. 4 Use the returned Markdown in your app

Try Firecrawl free

Self-hosting is free. The hosted API includes a free credit allowance, then usage-based pricing.

Visit Firecrawl →

We may earn a commission from this link, at no extra cost to you. Disclosure.

Firecrawl FAQ

How is Firecrawl different from Crawl4AI?

Both produce LLM-ready data and are open-source. Firecrawl leads with a managed API (free credits, then paid) for convenience, while Crawl4AI is self-host-first with no usage fees.

Firecrawl alternatives

Other data extraction & scraping agents worth comparing.

Crawl4AI

Open Source ★ 4.7

Best for: Developers building RAG or agent pipelines who need free, scalable web-to-Markdown extraction.

Data Extraction & Scraping · Updated Jun 2026 View →

Browser Use

Open Source ★ 4.6

Best for: Developers building agents that need to operate websites that have no API.

Data Extraction & Scraping · Updated Jun 2026 View →