Last updated: 2026-10-03
Firecrawl is an open source web data API that turns search, scrape, crawl and browser interaction into LLM-ready Markdown or JSON. Its core repository has 188,100 GitHub stars under AGPL-3.0, and the company reports more than 1.5 million users. It is the default web search provider in Hermes Agent.
About Firecrawl
Firecrawl is a web data API built for AI agents. You send it a query or a URL and get back clean Markdown or structured JSON instead of raw HTML. The core repository is open source under the AGPL license, and the company says more than 1.5 million users build with it. The team previously made the documentation chat product Mendable, and announced a $75M Series B led by Smash Capital on 2026-09-22.
The product is a set of endpoints that share one credit balance. Search returns results with full page content in one call. Scrape converts any URL to Markdown, HTML or JSON. Crawl and Map walk a whole site, Parse handles documents, Interact lets you click and fill forms on a page that is already scraped, and Agent runs research tasks with dynamic pricing. Proxies, anti-bot handling and JavaScript rendering are handled on the vendor side, so your code sees one response shape.
It is most useful as the web layer under an agent. Hermes Agent ships it as the default provider for web search and page extraction, and OpenClaw builds can use it in the same slot. A hosted MCP server at mcp.firecrawl.dev connects it to Claude Code and Cursor in one command, and the SDKs plug into LangChain, LlamaIndex and n8n pipelines. For search-only needs, compare Exa, Perplexity and You.com, or the Linkup skill.
Pricing is credit based. A basic scrape, crawl or map costs 1 credit per page, search costs 2 credits per ten results, and Interact costs 2 credits per browser minute. The Free plan needs no card, and paid plans run from Hobby to Scale, with Enterprise adding zero data retention and SSO. Hermes Agent's own docs quote a 500-credit free tier, while Firecrawl's pricing page lists a larger allowance, so this page follows the vendor's own figure. You can also self-host the open source core, but the cloud adds features the repository does not include.
Pricing
Free plan with 1,000 credits a month. Paid plans billed yearly: Hobby $16/mo (5,000 credits), Standard $83/mo (100,000), Growth $333/mo (500,000), Scale $599/mo (1,000,000). Hobby is $19/mo billed monthly.
Enterprise is custom with zero data retention and SSO. Pay as you go adds credits in $5 steps on paid plans. 1 credit = 1 page on a basic scrape, crawl or map; search is 2 credits per 10 results; Interact is 2 credits per browser minute.
Prices in USD, effective 2026-09-04.
| Tier | Monthly price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 1,000 credits a month, no card, 2 concurrent requests, 10 scrape or search calls a minute, community support |
| Hobby | $16/mo | 5,000 credits a month, 5 concurrent requests, 100 calls a minute, basic support, $16 billed yearly or $19 billed monthly |
| Standard | $83/mo | 100,000 credits a month, 25 concurrent requests, 500 calls a minute, standard support, billed yearly |
| Growth | $333/mo | 500,000 credits a month, 50 concurrent requests, 5,000 calls a minute, priority support, shared Slack channel, billed yearly |
| Scale | $599/mo | 1,000,000 credits a month, 100 concurrent requests, 10,000 calls a minute, one month credit rollover, invoiced billing, billed yearly |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom credits and concurrency, SSO and SCIM, zero data retention, dedicated support with SLA, bulk discounts |
Key Features
- Search with page content: One search call returns web, image and news results with full page content, billed at 2 credits per ten results.
- Scrape to Markdown or JSON: Converts any URL to Markdown, HTML, screenshots or structured JSON, with proxies, anti-bot handling and JavaScript rendering handled for you.
- Crawl and Map: Walks a whole site or lists its URLs at 1 credit per page, with webhooks for long jobs.
- Interact with live pages: Continues from a scraped page to click, fill forms and extract dynamic content, billed at 2 credits per browser minute.
- Hosted MCP server and CLI: Adds to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or OpenCode with one command against mcp.firecrawl.dev, with browser sign-in.
- Alexandria data sources: Combines official data providers, custom connectors and Firecrawl indexes with the live web behind one interface for agents.
Pros
- Open source core with 188.1K GitHub stars, so you can self-host instead of paying for credits.
- One credit balance covers search, scrape, crawl and map, so a mixed agent workload needs no second vendor.
- The first scrape works with no account or API key, which makes a trial a single curl command.
- SOC 2 Type II coverage is listed on all six plans, including the free one.
- A scrape that returns no result is not charged.
Cons
- JSON, Question and Highlight formats add 4 credits per page, making one structured page 5 credits, so extraction-heavy jobs burn through an entry-level plan fast.
- A page that answers 403 or 404 still costs 1 credit, so blocked crawls spend budget without returning content.
- Zero data retention, SSO, SCIM and an SLA are Enterprise only, which rules the self-serve plans out for strict privacy reviews.
- The free plan caps concurrency at two requests with a low per-minute rate limit, enough for a prototype and little more.
- The AGPL license on the core means a modified network service built on it must publish its changes, unlike the MIT-licensed SDKs.
Data Handling
- Training-data policy
- No model is trained on customer content that Firecrawl publishes. Zero data retention (no scraped content kept after the request, on approved use cases) is an Enterprise feature, not a self-serve toggle.
- Compliance
- SOC 2 Type II (listed on every plan on the pricing page)
Frequently Asked Questions
What are Firecrawl's pricing plans in 2026?
Quoted per month when billed yearly: Hobby $16 (5,000 credits), Standard $83 (100,000), Growth $333 (500,000) and Scale $599 (1,000,000). Hobby costs $19 when billed monthly, and Enterprise is custom. Paid plans can top up with pay as you go. Structured output formats add extra credits per page.
What do you get on Firecrawl's free tier?
The Free plan includes 1,000 credits that refresh every month, with no credit card. That covers about 500 searches or 1,000 scraped pages, at 2 concurrent requests and 10 scrape or search calls a minute. SOC 2 Type II coverage, PII redaction and MFA apply to every plan, but zero data retention does not.
What are the best alternatives to Firecrawl?
Pick [Exa](/hub/tools/exa) when you want its own neural index and ranked retrieval rather than page scraping. Pick [Perplexity](/hub/tools/perplexity) when you need cited, synthesized answers instead of raw content. [You.com](/hub/tools/youcom) is a third search API for agents, and the [Linkup](/hub/skills/linkup) skill covers search with sourced results. None of them crawl or interact with a live page the way Firecrawl does.
Firecrawl or Exa: which should you pick?
Firecrawl is the better fit when the job starts from a URL: scraping, crawling a site, filling a form, then returning Markdown. [Exa](/hub/tools/exa) is stronger when the job starts from a question and you want ranked results from an index it built. Both appear in the keyless ring Hermes Agent uses when no web key is set, so many builds use one for search and the other for extraction.
What does it take to start using Firecrawl?
Send a POST to the v2 scrape endpoint and you get a result without an account or key, with lower limits. For real use, create a key on the free plan and install an SDK for Python or Node. For agents, one command adds the hosted MCP server to Claude Code or Codex, then you sign in through the browser. Set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY if your agent framework expects it.
Top Alternatives
- Exa: Pick Firecrawl if your agent starts from URLs and needs scraping and interaction; pick Exa if it starts from a question and wants ranked retrieval.
- Perplexity: Choose Firecrawl when you need raw page content in your own pipeline; choose Perplexity when you want a cited answer.
- You.com: Pick Firecrawl when you also need crawl and page interaction; pick You.com when search results alone are enough.