Firecrawl
Web scraping API that returns clean markdown for LLMs
Firecrawl turns web pages into text a language model can use. One API call scrapes a page and returns markdown, HTML or structured JSON, handling the parts that usually break a scraper - JavaScript rendering, proxies, blocked requests, PDFs - without you running browsers. Beyond single pages, crawl walks a whole site, map lists its URLs, search queries the web and returns full page content rather than links, and an agent endpoint can interact with a page before extracting from it. There are SDKs for Node, Python, Go, Rust, Java, PHP, Ruby, Elixir and .NET, a CLI, an MCP server for driving it from an AI assistant, and webhooks for long-running jobs. The code is open source and can be self-hosted, and the cloud version is metered in credits: 1,000 a month free, 100,000 on the Standard plan, with concurrency limits rising by tier.
- Scrape a page to markdown, HTML or structured JSON
- Handles JavaScript rendering, proxies and PDFs
- Crawl a whole site, or map it to a list of URLs
- Search the web and get full page content back
- Agent endpoint interacts with a page before extracting
- SDKs for Node, Python, Go, Rust, Java and more
- CLI and MCP server for use from an AI assistant
- Open source, and self-hostable
Based on what people have said
Every answer links back to the mentions it came fromWhat are the primary use cases for Firecrawl?
Users employ Firecrawl for web research, content extraction, and gathering context for AI agents. It is used to scrape websites, crawl entire domains, and perform structured data extraction. Additionally, it is integrated into workflows for SEO auditing, monitoring competitor pages, and enriching data with other APIs.
7 mentions · @Eric_Kangg · r/Agent_AI · @AIGuide_ · @tom_doerr · @JulianGoldieSEO · r/ClaudeWorkflows · and 1 more · Aug 2026 – Sep 2026
How does Firecrawl compare to building a custom scraper with tools like Puppeteer or Playwright?
Some users prefer Firecrawl because it reduces maintenance compared to managing Puppeteer, which can become difficult to maintain when handling many pages. Others note that while Firecrawl handles browser rendering and cleanup, some developers still look for ways to let local LLMs drive a 'real' browser directly for more control.
2 mentions · r/Agent_AI · r/LocalLLaMA · Aug 2026 – Sep 2026
Is Firecrawl a free or paid service?
There is disagreement or confusion regarding pricing. Some users state that Firecrawl is a paid service, while others highlight the availability of a free, keyless plan that allows endpoint calls without registration.
4 mentions · r/Newsletters · @abimaelmartell · @CalebPeffer · @cbmenefee · Aug 2026
How reliable is Firecrawl for web scraping?
Experiences vary; some users report success using it for research and agent workflows. However, others note that like many vendors in the space, Firecrawl can fail on certain URLs, leading to retries and the consumption of credits.
2 mentions · r/Newsletters · r/LocalLLM · Aug 2026
These summarise counts and dates only. Read the quotes themselves under what people are saying.
What people are saying about Firecrawl
57% positive“no kiwix or firecrawl retriever in it though, you'd extend BaseSearchEngine and hit kiwix-serve's /search endpoint for previews then /raw/<zim>/content/ for the article body. for the notebooklm side, open-notebook, it's the closest thing with the two speaker audio stuff.”
“Add a specific web search MCP to your agent, such as firecrawl or serpapi.”
“So the original open deep research project from Langfuse is archived, are there any other alternatives to use with self hosted models + kiwix and firecrawl?”
“Add the @firecrawl cli instead and get the highest quality web data in the game”
“For what you’re doing I’d probably start with Firecrawl. Puppeteer gives you more control, but I’ve found it turns into extra maintenance pretty quickly once you’re dealing with a lot of pages.”
“Firecrawl strips out the bloat and serves back clean, structured Markdown so you don't instantly incinerate your token budget.”
“No, this run used Firecrawl Browser Sandbox over CDP rather than the Scrape API. We created a browser session, connected Playwright, navigated to the URL, waited 60 seconds, and captured a full-page screenshot.”
“Firecrawl really gave me enough to scrape the whole internet lol”
“I used ZenRows with auto mode and Markdown output, but the same approach should work with Firecrawl, Playwright, or any browser-rendering fetch setup.”
“That's not from "write me a blog." It's the research, Firecrawl for the extra context, and a local knowledge base of our own product so the draft has real details.”
“When I set up my Make workflow, it suggested FireCrawl as a component, but since I didn't have an account with them, it was trying to build with other tools. I don't think those are cutting it.”
“Been using Claude code with firecrawl. Have it set up to go through sources I have given it or it finds on its own. Then it also looks for new sources each run. Works pretty good. Firecrawl is a paid service though.”
“I’d test Firecrawl first based on your requirements. It’s one of the few options where search, crawling, scraping and structured extraction are all part of the same workflow”
“community notes in our industry is rare.. well done @firecrawl 😄”
“Tell it you heard firecrawl can help. Claude will make a plan for you.”
“free firecrawl, no registration needed! just call the endpoint!”
“Now Hermes can detect those scanned pages and use Firecrawl OCR to pull the”
“Firecrawl is free with our Keyless plan”
“@nickscamara_ @firecrawl Woot finally! Will work on expanding its coverage for this in Hermes Agent tonight!”
“fyi - all Firecrawl endpoints are free and keyless ;)”
“Firecrawl MCP for anything public: competitor changelogs, pricing pages, reddit, the”
“connect Firecrawl or Exa to Claude via API key”
“Firecrawl may help”
“Audits up to 500 pages of a website with 74 SEO metrics per page using Firecrawl and DataForSEO.”
“The problem: every vendor (Firecrawl, ScrapFly, Bright Data) fails on different URLs. When one fails, you retry and waste credits.”