Firecrawl vs 7 Competitors: Best Web Scraping APIs for AI in 2026

7 Firecrawl Alternatives for AI Web Scraping in 2026

Firecrawl has become the go-to scraping tool for AI workflows — clean markdown output, JavaScript rendering, and a solid Python SDK. But its pricing escalates quickly: $83/month for 3K pages, $996/month for 100K, and $2,388/month for 500K at list price. If you're building AI agents, RAG pipelines, or data products, there are better alternatives that cost less and do more.

Key Takeaways

• Firecrawl charges $1/page at scale — 100K pages costs $83/month (Standard), but overages add up fast
• SearchHive's ScrapeForge handles the same markdown extraction at a fraction of the cost, bundled with search and deep research APIs
• Jina AI Reader offers free web-to-markdown conversion with a simple URL-based API
• Apify provides 1,500+ pre-built scraping actors for specific sites (LinkedIn, Google Maps, etc.)
• Self-hosted options (Browserless, Crawlee) give you unlimited scraping for infrastructure costs only

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1. SearchHive ScrapeForge

Best for: Developers who need scraping, search, and AI research from one platform.

ScrapeForge is SearchHive's web scraping engine — same clean markdown output as Firecrawl, but bundled with SwiftSearch (SERP API) and DeepDive (AI research). You use the same credits and API key across all three products.

Pricing: Free (500 credits), Starter $9/mo (5K), Builder $49/mo (100K), Unicorn $199/mo (500K).

At 100K pages, SearchHive costs $49/month vs Firecrawl's $83/month Standard plan. At 500K pages, it's $199 vs $2,388. The savings are massive at volume, and you get two additional APIs included.

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.searchhive.dev/v1/scrapeforge",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"},
    json={
        "urls": ["https://example.com/blog/post"],
        "format": "markdown",
        "remove_selector": "nav, footer, .ads"
    }
)
for page in response.json().get("results", []):
    print(page["markdown"][:500])

ScrapeForge handles JavaScript rendering, CSS selector removal, and structured extraction out of the box. The output format matches what AI agents expect — clean markdown, no boilerplate.

/compare/firecrawl

2. Jina AI Reader

Best for: Quick, free markdown extraction from any URL.

Jina Reader converts any webpage to markdown via a simple URL scheme. Append a URL to r.jina.ai/ and get clean markdown back. It's free for moderate usage.

Pricing: Free tier (generous), API plans for production use.

import requests

md = requests.get(
    "https://r.jina.ai/https://example.com/article",
    headers={"Accept": "text/markdown"}
).text
print(md[:500])

Limitation: No control over selectors, no JavaScript rendering, no batch processing. Best for quick prototyping, not production pipelines.

3. Apify

Best for: Scraping specific platforms with pre-built actors (LinkedIn, Google Maps, Amazon, etc.).

Apify's marketplace includes 1,500+ pre-built "actors" for common scraping targets. Instead of writing custom scrapers, you configure existing ones. Runs on their cloud or self-hosted.

Pricing: Free (5 compute units), Starter $49/mo, Business $149/mo, Enterprise custom.

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("apify/web-scraper").call(run_input={
    "startUrls": [{"url": "https://example.com"}],
    "pageFunction": "async function page({ page, request }) { return { title: await page.title() }; }"
})

Limitation: Actor pricing is opaque — costs depend on compute units consumed. Can get expensive for large scraping jobs. No unified search API.

4. Crawlee (Open Source)

Best for: Self-hosted scraping with full control over infrastructure.

Crawlee by Apify is an open-source Node.js/Python scraping library. It handles proxy rotation, request queues, browser pools, and auto-retry. Free forever — you just pay for infrastructure.

from crawlee.crawlers import PlaywrightCrawler

async def main():
    crawler = PlaywrightCrawler(max_requests_per_crawl=100)
    @crawler.router.default_handler
    async def request_handler(page):
        title = await page.title()
        print(f"Scraped: {title}")
    await crawler.run(["https://example.com"])

Limitation: Requires engineering investment to set up and maintain. No managed service, no support. You handle proxies, scaling, and error recovery yourself.

5. Browserless

Best for: Headless browser-as-a-service with programmatic control.

Browserless gives you remote headless Chrome instances via API. You get full browser control — navigation, screenshots, PDFs, JS execution — without managing Chrome infrastructure.

Pricing: Free (1,000 units/mo), Starter $200/mo (250K units), Business $500/mo (1M units).

import requests

resp = requests.post("https://chrome.browserless.io/content", json={
    "url": "https://example.com",
    "elements": [{"selector": "article"}]
}, headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"})
print(resp.json())

Limitation: Units pricing can be confusing (different actions cost different units). No built-in markdown extraction — you extract raw HTML and process it yourself.

6. ScrapingBee

Best for: Simple scraping with built-in proxy rotation.

ScrapingBee handles headless browsers and proxy rotation with a simple API. Extract data using CSS selectors or get raw HTML from JavaScript-rendered pages.

Pricing: Freelancer $49/mo (1K credits), Startup $99/mo (3K), Business $249/mo (12K), Enterprise $599/mo (36K).

Limitation: Credits are expensive compared to competitors ($49 for 1K requests). No markdown output mode. No AI features.

7. ZenRows

Best for: Bypassing anti-bot systems with rotating proxies.

ZenRows specializes in bypassing Cloudflare, DataDome, and other anti-bot protections. It proxies your requests through residential proxies with automatic retry and rotation.

Pricing: Starter $49/mo (50K requests), Professional $99/mo (250K), Business $249/mo (1M), Enterprise custom.

Limitation: No markdown conversion or structured extraction. It's a proxy/routing layer, not a scraping framework. $49/month minimum.

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Comparison Table

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Recommendation

For teams currently using Firecrawl for AI workflows, SearchHive ScrapeForge is the strongest replacement. It produces the same clean markdown output, costs significantly less at volume ($49 vs $83 for 100K pages), and includes SwiftSearch and DeepDive at no extra cost.

For quick prototyping, Jina Reader is unbeatable — free, zero setup, URL-based API. For platform-specific scraping (LinkedIn, Amazon, etc.), Apify's actor marketplace saves enormous development time.

Start with SearchHive's free tier (500 credits, no credit card) and see how it compares to your current Firecrawl setup. Docs include migration guides and code examples.