Apify vs Firecrawl
A side-by-side look at 2 AI & ML tools for 2026 — the verdict, pricing, ratings, features, and what readers think.
apify.com
Best for Developers and AI teams that want ready-made scrapers and automation tools, or a cloud platform to run their own.
A marketplace and platform of ready-to-run web scraping and automation tools for AI agents and apps.
Visit Apify
firecrawl.dev
Best for Developers building AI agents and RAG apps that need clean, LLM-ready data from any website through one API.
The open-source web data API that lets AI agents search, scrape and interact with the live web.
Visit FirecrawlPricing compared
Apify
$19/mo
Firecrawl
$16/mo
Head to head
| Apify | Firecrawl | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $19/mo | $16/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Free plan with $5 of monthly usage, no credit card | Free plan with 1,000 credits per month, no credit card required |
| Platforms | Web · API · CLI | API · CLI · Web · Self-hosted |
| Founded | 2015 | — |
| HQ | Prague, Czechia | — |
Pros & cons
Apify
Pros
- Huge store of ready-made Actors covers many common scraping jobs.
- Free plan with no credit card makes testing easy.
- Includes proxies, anti-blocking tools and scheduling on the platform.
- MCP server and API let AI agents run Actors directly.
- Open-source Crawlee library reduces lock-in for custom scrapers.
Cons
- Costs vary by Actor and pricing model, so budgeting needs test runs.
- Unused prepaid usage expires at the end of each billing cycle.
- Free plan is blocked once monthly usage runs out.
- Store Actor quality depends on the individual developer.
Firecrawl
Pros
- One API covers search, scrape, crawl, map and interaction, so agents need fewer separate tools.
- Returns clean markdown or JSON that cuts input tokens versus raw HTML.
- Open source with a very active GitHub community, which lowers lock-in risk.
- Free plan of 1,000 credits a month with no credit card makes prototyping easy.
- Connects to AI agents and MCP clients with a single command.
Cons
- Shared credit system means search, JSON extraction and interaction cost different amounts, so budgeting takes monitoring.
- Pages that return 403 or 404 errors still cost 1 credit.
- Benchmark and token-saving claims are vendor-published, not independently verified.
- Aimed at developers; there is no end-user research interface.
- SSO and SCIM are limited to the Enterprise plan.
Features compared
| Apify | Firecrawl | |
|---|---|---|
| Plans & pricing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Pricing model | Monthly subscription plus pay-as-you-go platform usage | Usage-based API credits |
| Platforms & access | ||
| Web app | ✓ Yes | — |
| Integrations & extensibility | ||
| Public API | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Native integrations | Zapier, GitHub, Google Sheets, Google Drive, Slack, n8n | — |
| Automation (Zapier/Make) | ✓ Yes | — |