webclaw vs Firecrawl
Firecrawl is a Y Combinator backed web scraping API that converts websites to markdown. Here's how it compares to webclaw on pricing, features, and performance.
webclaw
Rust / MIT
Firecrawl
Node.js / TypeScript / Open source
webclaw pricing
1 credit = 1 page. No multipliers.
Firecrawl pricing
1 credit/page base, but JSON extraction costs +4 credits, enhanced proxy +4 credits, browser +2 credits/min.
Feature comparison
| Feature | webclaw | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Scrape (HTML to markdown) | ||
| Crawl (BFS with depth control) | ||
| Batch (parallel multi-URL) | ||
| Search (web search + scrape) | ||
| Extract (LLM structured data) | Yes (+4 credits/page) | |
| Screenshot (full page) | ||
| Browser actions (click, type, scroll) | Yes (/interact, preview) | |
| Anti-bot bypass (TLS level) | Proxy-based (+4 credits) | |
| JS rendering | ||
| PDF extraction | ||
| MCP server | ||
| CLI tool | ||
| Self-hostable | ||
| Open source (MIT) | AGPL-3.0 | |
| Credit multipliers | None. 1 credit = 1 page. | Yes. JSON +4, proxy +4, browser +2/min. |
Pricing comparison
| Plan | webclaw | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 500 pages/mo (renews) | 500 credits (one-time) |
| Starter | $49/mo — 10,000 pages | $16/mo — 3,000 credits |
| Mid | $99/mo — 100,000 pages | $83/mo — 100,000 credits |
| High | $399/mo — 500,000 pages | $333/mo — 500,000 credits |
webclaw credit model: 1 credit = 1 page, always. No extra charges for JSON extraction, proxies, or JS rendering.
Firecrawl credit model: 1 credit/page base, but JSON extraction costs +4 credits, enhanced proxy +4 credits, browser +2 credits/min. A page with JSON + proxy = 9 credits.
Firecrawl strengths
- Larger community and ecosystem (~30k GitHub stars)
- Y Combinator backed with dedicated team
- More third-party integrations (Langchain, LlamaIndex)
- /interact feature for agent browser control
- Extensive template library
Firecrawl limitations
- Credit multipliers make real costs unpredictable
- Free tier is one-time, not monthly
- AGPL license (not MIT)
- Node.js based (higher memory, slower than Rust)
- No Go SDK
Which one should you use?
Use webclaw when
You want predictable pricing (1 credit = 1 page, always), need a Rust-native engine for speed, want MIT licensing, or need Go SDK support.
Use Firecrawl when
You need a mature ecosystem with lots of integrations, your team already uses Langchain/LlamaIndex, or you need the /interact agent feature.
OTHER COMPARISONS