What is the Difference Between ScrapeForge and Firecrawl? Complete Answer

ScrapeForge (by SearchHive) and Firecrawl are both web scraping APIs designed for developers building AI applications, data pipelines, and automation tools. They solve similar problems -- converting web pages into clean, structured data -- but take different approaches to pricing, features, and developer experience.

This FAQ covers every difference you need to know to choose the right tool.

Q: What exactly are ScrapeForge and Firecrawl?

Firecrawl is an open-source web scraping API by Mendable that converts websites into clean markdown or structured data. It handles JavaScript rendering, provides a crawling API for multi-page extraction, and has built a large open-source community (110K+ GitHub stars).

ScrapeForge is SearchHive's web scraping API that is part of a unified platform alongside SwiftSearch (search API) and DeepDive (research API). It renders JavaScript, rotates proxies, bypasses CAPTCHAs, and returns clean markdown, free JSON formatter, or text output.

Q: How do their prices compare?

Firecrawl pricing:

• Free: 500 credits (one-time)
• Hobby: $16/mo for 3,000 credits
• Standard: $83/mo for 100,000 credits
• Growth: $333/mo for 500,000 credits
• Scale: $599/mo for 1,000,000 credits
• Extra credits: $9 per additional 1,000 (Hobby), $47 per 35K (Standard), $177 per 175K (Growth)

ScrapeForge pricing:

• Free: 500 credits (one-time)
• Starter: $9/mo for 5,000 credits
• Builder: $49/mo for 100,000 credits
• Unicorn: $199/mo for 500,000 credits

ScrapeForge is significantly cheaper at every tier. At the 100K level, ScrapeForge costs $49 vs Firecrawl's $83 -- a 41% savings. At the 500K level, ScrapeForge costs $199 vs Firecrawl's $333 -- a 40% savings.

Q: Do they both handle JavaScript rendering?

Yes. Both Firecrawl and ScrapeForge render JavaScript using headless browsers. This is essential for modern sites built with React, Vue, Angular, or any framework that loads content dynamically.

Firecrawl uses its own browser infrastructure. ScrapeForge uses managed headless browsers with configurable wait times.

Q: How do their crawling features compare?

Firecrawl offers a dedicated Crawl API that discovers and follows links automatically. You provide a seed URL and it spiders the site, returning all discovered pages. Crawl uses 1 credit per page.

ScrapeForge provides a scrape endpoint for individual pages and integrates with SearchHive's SwiftSearch API for discovering URLs programmatically. You can combine SwiftSearch (to find relevant URLs) with ScrapeForge (to extract them) for a similar crawling workflow.

Q: What output formats do they support?

Firecrawl: Markdown, raw HTML, structured JSON (via LLM extraction), and screenshots.

ScrapeForge: Markdown, JSON, plain text, and raw HTML. CSS selector-based extraction is available for pulling specific elements.

Both handle markdown conversion well. Firecrawl has an edge with its LLM-powered structured extraction, while ScrapeForge's CSS selector approach gives you more deterministic control over what gets extracted.

Q: Which one is better at bypassing anti-bot protection?

ScrapeForge includes built-in stealth features -- residential proxy rotation, browser fingerprint randomization, and CAPTCHA bypass. These are available on all plans.

Firecrawl handles basic anti-bot measures but does not advertise residential proxies or advanced stealth features on standard plans. For heavy-duty scraping behind Cloudflare or similar protection, you may need additional proxy infrastructure with Firecrawl.

Q: Can I self-host either of them?

Firecrawl is open-source (MIT license) and can be self-hosted via Docker. This is a major advantage if you need full control over your infrastructure or want to avoid API costs at scale.

ScrapeForge is a hosted API only. There is no self-hosted version. SearchHive manages all infrastructure, which means less operational overhead but no option to run it on your own servers.

Q: How do their rate limits compare?

Firecrawl:

• Free: 2 concurrent requests, low rate limits
• Hobby: 5 concurrent requests
• Standard: 50 concurrent requests
• Growth: 100 concurrent requests
• Scale: 150 concurrent requests

ScrapeForge:

• Free: Basic rate limits
• Starter: Standard rate limits
• Builder: Higher rate limits
• Unicorn: Highest rate limits, priority queue

Firecrawl publishes exact concurrency numbers. ScrapeForge scales rate limits with plan tier. For most use cases, both handle typical workloads well at their respective paid tiers.

Q: Do they both have Python SDKs?

Firecrawl has official Python and Node.js SDKs available on PyPI and npm. The Python SDK is well-maintained with active community contributions.

ScrapeForge uses a standard REST API that works with any HTTP client. No dedicated SDK is needed -- a few lines of requests code get you started:

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.searchhive.dev/v1/scrape",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_KEY"},
    json={"url": "https://example.com", "format": "markdown", "render_js": True}
)
data = response.json()
print(data["content"])

Q: What about documentation and developer experience?

Firecrawl has extensive documentation, an active Discord community, and open-source examples. Being open-source means you can also read the source code to understand exactly how it works.

ScrapeForge documentation is available on the SearchHive docs site. The API is straightforward REST, and SearchHive provides a clean dashboard for managing API keys and monitoring usage.

Q: Can I use them together with AI/LLM pipelines?

Both integrate well with LLM pipelines. Common patterns include:

• RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation): Scrape web content, convert to markdown, chunk, and embed for vector search
• AI agents: Give agents the ability to browse the web in real-time
• Data enrichment: Scrape competitor sites, product pages, or reviews for analysis

Firecrawl has tighter integration with LangChain and LlamaIndex through official connectors. ScrapeForge works with any framework since it returns standard markdown/text output.

Q: Which one should I choose?

Choose Firecrawl if:

• You want open-source with self-hosting option
• You need the dedicated Crawl API for site-wide spidering
• You prefer LLM-powered structured extraction
• You want a large community and ecosystem

Choose ScrapeForge if:

• You want lower pricing (40%+ savings at scale)
• You need built-in proxy rotation and CAPTCHA bypass
• You also need search (SwiftSearch) and research (DeepDive) APIs
• You want a simple REST API without SDK dependencies
• You prefer a unified platform instead of multiple tools

Summary

Both ScrapeForge and Firecrawl are capable web scraping APIs. Firecrawl has the advantage of being open-source with a crawling API and LLM extraction. ScrapeForge wins on price (40% cheaper), built-in stealth features, and the value of being part of a unified platform with search and research APIs.

For most developers building AI applications, the choice comes down to whether you need self-hosting (Firecrawl) or better pricing with a unified API (ScrapeForge).

Try ScrapeForge free with 500 credits and see how it compares. No credit card required.