What is Firecrawl?
Firecrawl is a web data API built for AI agents and developers. It gives an AI system the ability to find information on the web, read pages and turn them into clean data, such as markdown, JSON or screenshots, with navigation, footers and ads removed to save tokens. The company describes it as open source and says it reaches more sources through its Alexandria data layer.
In practice you call the API with an API key from Python, Node.js, cURL or a CLI, or connect it to an AI agent or MCP client. You can search the web and get full page content from results, scrape a single URL into markdown or JSON, map or crawl a site, run AI prompts or code against a loaded page to click through it, and gather data autonomously with an agent endpoint. It also parses documents such as PDF and DOCX files.
Key features
- Search the web and return full content from results
- Scrape pages into LLM-ready markdown, JSON or screenshots
- Interact with a scraped page using AI prompts or code
- Crawl and map websites
- Autonomous agent for data gathering
- Parse PDF, DOCX and other document files
Who is it for
- AI agent developers
- Software developers building data pipelines
- Teams needing web data for LLM applications
How to get started with Firecrawl
- Create a free account on Firecrawl, no credit card required
- Get your API key from the project dashboard
- Call the scrape or search function in Python, Node.js or cURL
- You are building an AI agent that needs clean web content in markdown
- You need to pull data from entire websites via crawl or site mapping
- You need to parse JavaScript-rendered pages, PDF or DOCX files
- You need a graphical interface in Polish, which the product does not offer
- You plan high request volume on a budget limited to the free plan
Pros and cons
- Clean, token-efficient output without navigation, footers or ads
- Open source with a public repository
- Connects to AI agents and MCP clients with one command
- Usage is metered in credits, with limits on concurrent requests per plan
- Free tier is limited to 1,000 credits per month
Firecrawl pricing
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 USD / month | 1,000 credits/month, 2 concurrent requests, low rate limits |
| Hobby | 16 USD / month | 5,000 credits/month billed yearly (19 USD billed monthly), 5 concurrent requests, basic support |
| Standard | 83 USD / month | 100,000 credits/month billed yearly, 25 concurrent requests, standard support |
| Growth | 333 USD / month | 500,000 credits/month billed yearly, 50 concurrent requests, priority support |
| Scale | 599 USD / month | 1,000,000 credits/month billed yearly, 100 concurrent requests, priority support |
Prices copied from Firecrawl pricing, checked October 12, 2026. Currency as shown by the vendor; taxes may apply.
Is Firecrawl free?
Yes, there is a free plan. 1,000 credits per month, refreshed monthly, no credit card required. Roughly 500 searches or 1,000 pages scraped, with 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits.
Firecrawl alternatives
| Tool | Price from | Free plan | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
 Exa | not listed | trial | APIs & models |
 Tavily | 0.008 USD | yes | APIs & models |
 You.com | 1 USD | yes | APIs & models |
 Cline | not listed | yes | APIs & models |
 Ollama | 20 USD/mo | yes | APIs & models |
 Amazon Bedrock | od 0,20 USD | ? | APIs & models |
All alternatives to Firecrawl →
FAQ
What is Firecrawl used for?
Web data API that lets AI agents search, scrape, map and interact with live web pages and return clean LLM-ready data.
Is Firecrawl free?
Yes, there is a free plan. 1,000 credits per month, refreshed monthly, no credit card required. Roughly 500 searches or 1,000 pages scraped, with 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits.
How much does Firecrawl cost?
The cheapest paid plan is 16 USD/mo (vendor pricing, October 12, 2026).
What are the best Firecrawl alternatives?
Closest alternatives: Exa, Tavily, You.com, Cline, Ollama.
Data checked October 12, 2026 on the vendor website (firecrawl.dev).