#1 Firecrawl Alternative
Scrape, crawl, map, search, and batch-process the web through one API. Context.dev Pro is $90 a month for 100,000 credits and 100 concurrent requests; Firecrawl Standard is $99 for the same 100,000 credits and 25 concurrent browsers, and bills pages that come back 403 or 404. On TRACE, the open-source daily scraping benchmark, Context.dev returned useful content on 87.0% of 2,527 fresh pages and Firecrawl on 82.3%.
What 100,000 credits a month buy
Pro ($90) vs Standard ($99), October 2026 list prices
Both bill 1 credit for a standard scrape with JavaScript rendering and proxy escalation included. Since September 4, 2026, Firecrawl also bills 1 credit for a page that comes back 403 or 404.
Powering agents and products with the world's data.
Why switch
Firecrawl and Context.dev both scrape, crawl, map, and search the web at 1 credit per page. Context.dev charges less per credit and allows more concurrent requests on every paid plan, and does not bill pages that come back blocked.
- Key difference
The same 100,000 credits for $9 less, with 4x the concurrency
Context.dev Pro is $90 a month for 100,000 credits and 100 concurrent requests. Firecrawl Standard is $99 billed monthly for the same 100,000 credits and 25 concurrent browsers. Both charge 1 credit per page with JavaScript rendering and proxy escalation included, so the difference is $0.90 vs $0.99 per 1,000 pages and four times the parallel work.
- Benchmarks
Ahead of Firecrawl on four public benchmarks
On TRACE, the open-source daily benchmark that sends about 2,500 fresh pages to four scraping APIs with caching off and judges them without seeing the provider name, Context.dev returned useful content on 87.0% of 2,527 pages in the November 6, 2026 sample and Firecrawl on 82.3%, at $0.79 against $1.20 per 1,000 useful pages and a p95 of 8.9 s against 11.1 s. Context.dev has ranked first in every daily sample so far. On Scrapingbench, which gives every provider the same agent, model, and limits and checks each answer by script, the agent finished 38 of 40 scrape tasks with Context.dev and 32 with Firecrawl, at 1.36¢ per finished task against 1.67¢. In WebCrawlerAPI’s October 2026 test of 806 URLs, Context.dev returned usable Markdown on 92.1% of pages and Firecrawl on 89.7%, with a faster median response (2.9 s against 3.6 s). On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board, which sends the same 300 questions through 13 web search APIs with one extraction model and one judge, Context.dev scored 98.0% accuracy and Firecrawl 95.3%, at $4.49 against $5.24 per 1,000 correct answers. See the dated results and source links on our benchmarks page.
- Billing
Blocked pages are not billed
Since September 4, 2026, Firecrawl charges 1 credit for a page that comes back with a 403 or 404 status. On Context.dev, a scrape where every output fails costs nothing; only a target 404 keeps the base credit. Failed pages in a batch are refunded when the batch settles.
- Scale
Growth and Scale plans for $99 to $249 less
Context.dev Growth is $300 for 500,000 credits and 250 concurrent requests; Firecrawl Growth is $399 for the same credits and 50 browsers. Scale is $500 vs $749 for 1,000,000 credits, with 500 concurrent requests vs 100. Paid plans have no per-minute request cap.
- Add-ons
Fewer paid add-ons per page
Highlights on a scrape add 1 credit instead of 4. Zero data retention is enabled on request at no extra credits; on Firecrawl it is Enterprise only and adds 1 credit per page. JSON extraction costs 5 credits on both, and overage on Pro is $2.00 per 1,000 credits instead of $2.50.
- Batches
Batches of 100,000 URLs with every output, kept 180 days
Send up to 100,000 URLs or a crawl in one batch, with Markdown, HTML, JSON against your schema, screenshots, or prebuilt parsers on every page. Results stay available for 180 days. Firecrawl keeps batch results on its API for 24 hours after completion.
- Also included
Prebuilt parsers and brand data on the same key
Prebuilt parsers return Google Maps places and up to 1,000 reviews, app store listings and reviews, G2 reviews, and Instagram profiles at the normal scrape price. When a pipeline also needs logos or company profiles, the Brand API resolves them by domain, name, email, or ticker for 10 credits per lookup.
What one request really costs
What 1,000 requests cost on Context.dev Pro ($90) and Firecrawl Standard ($99), each with 100,000 credits. Both APIs bill 1 credit for a standard scrape, so the gap comes from the price per credit and from what each one bills on top.
| Request | Context.dev | Firecrawl | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scrape a page to Markdown or HTMLJavaScript rendering and proxy escalation included on both | $0.90 (1 credit) | $0.99 (1 credit) | 10% more |
| A page that comes back 403Blocked after the proxy retry | $0 | $0.99 (1 credit) | Billed |
| Extract JSON against your schemaBase scrape plus extraction | $4.50 (5 credits) | $4.95 (5 credits) | 10% more |
| Highlights on a scrapeOnly the passages relevant to your query | +$0.90 (1 credit) | +$3.96 (4 credits) | 4.4x more |
| Search 10 results with relevant passagesThe passages that answer your query from every result | $1.80 (2 credits) | $1.98 (2 credits) | 10% more |
| Search 10 results with full-page MarkdownEvery result page read in full | $9.90 (11 credits) | $11.88 (12 credits) | 20% more |
| Zero data retentionNothing kept after the response | +$0, on request | Enterprise only | +1 credit/page |
Derived from Context.dev Pro ($90 for 100,000 credits) and Firecrawl Standard ($99 for 100,000 credits) at monthly billing, per 1,000 requests. Firecrawl rates are from docs.firecrawl.dev/billing.
Full comparison
| Feature | Context.dev | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Scraping & Crawling | ||
| Scrape to Markdown or HTML | Yes | Yes |
| Screenshots and image extraction | Yes | URLs expire in 24h |
| JSON extraction against your schema | 5 credits | 5 credits |
| Prebuilt parsers (Maps, app stores, G2) | Yes | Paid providers |
| Crawl a site | 1 credit/page | 1 credit/page |
| Map site URLs | Yes | Yes |
| Async batches with JSON and screenshots | Up to 100,000 URLs | Yes |
| Batch results retention | 180 days | 24 hours via API |
| Change monitoring with webhooks | Yes | Yes |
| Parse PDFs and documents to Markdown | Yes | Yes |
| Signed-in scraping with saved logins | Browser profiles | Persistent profiles |
| Interaction & Search | ||
| Browser actions before capture | Up to 5, 2 credits | Up to 50 |
| Live multi-step browser sessions | No | 2 to 7 credits/min |
| Web search endpoint | Yes | Yes |
| Search 10 results with page Markdown | 11 credits | 12 credits |
| Research answers with source URLs | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing & Billing | ||
| JS rendering and proxy escalation in base price | Yes | Yes |
| Blocked 403 pages billed | No | 1 credit |
| Highlights on a scrape | +1 credit | +4 credits |
| Zero data retention | On request, +0 | Enterprise, +1/page |
| Concurrency, Pro vs Standard | 100 | 25 |
| Overage per 1,000 credits, Pro vs Standard | $2.00 | $2.50 |
| Per-minute caps on paid plans | None | Per endpoint |
| Deployment | ||
| Managed cloud API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted open source | No | AGPL-3.0 |
| Developer Experience | ||
| REST API with public OpenAPI spec | Yes | Yes |
| TypeScript, Python, and Go SDKs | Yes | Yes |
| PHP and Ruby SDKs | Yes | Yes |
| CLI | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes |
| Also Included: Brand & Company Data | ||
| Brand profile by name, email, or ticker | Yes | No |
| Logo CDN for direct embedding (Logo Link) | Yes | No |
| Transaction / merchant enrichment | Yes | No |
Cost per 1,000 pages
Public list prices on both sites, broken down to the cost of scraping 1,000 pages at each tier, with the concurrency each plan allows.
| Tier | Context.dev | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free $0/mo 1,000 credits 2 concurrent requests $0 per 1K pages | Free $0/mo 1,000 credits 2 concurrent browsers $0 per 1K pages |
| Entry | Developer $20/mo 5,000 credits 10 concurrent requests $3.33–$4.00 per 1K pages | Hobby $19/mo 5,000 credits 5 concurrent browsers $3.17–$3.80 per 1K pages |
| Mid | Pro $90/mo 100,000 credits 100 concurrent requests $0.75–$0.90 per 1K pages | Standard $99/mo 100,000 credits 25 concurrent browsers $0.83–$0.99 per 1K pages |
| Growth | Growth $300/mo 500,000 credits 250 concurrent requests $0.50–$0.60 per 1K pages | Growth $399/mo 500,000 credits 50 concurrent browsers $0.67–$0.80 per 1K pages |
| High volume | Scale $500/mo 1,000,000 credits 500 concurrent requests $0.42–$0.50 per 1K pages | Scale $749/mo 1,000,000 credits 100 concurrent browsers $0.60–$0.75 per 1K pages |
- Cost per 1,000 pages assumes 1 credit per page, the base scrape price on both APIs, with JavaScript rendering and proxy escalation included. Each range runs from yearly billing to monthly billing.
- Firecrawl bills 1 credit for a page that returns a 403 or 404 status (effective September 4, 2026). Context.dev does not charge when every output of a scrape fails, except that a target 404 keeps the base credit.
- Add-ons differ. JSON extraction adds 4 credits per page on both. Highlights on a scrape add 1 credit on Context.dev and 4 on Firecrawl. Search with Markdown for 10 results costs 11 credits on Context.dev and 12 on Firecrawl. Zero data retention adds no credits on Context.dev (enabled on request); on Firecrawl it is Enterprise only and adds 1 credit per page.
- Firecrawl prices, credits, and concurrent browsers are from firecrawl.dev/pricing and docs.firecrawl.dev/billing. Context.dev brand lookups, if you use them, cost 10 credits each.
Prices and plans checked on .
Which one fits
Both are capable web data APIs. These are the cases where the choice is clear. For formats, pricing, and code, see the Context.dev web scraping API.
Choose Context.dev if
- You scrape at volume and want 100,000 credits and 100 concurrent requests for $90 instead of 100,000 and 25 for $99.
- You hit protected sites and do not want to pay for pages that come back 403.
- You run large batches with JSON extraction or screenshots and need results available for 180 days.
- You also need prebuilt parsers or brand and company data and would rather not add a second vendor.
Choose Firecrawl if
- You need to self-host. Firecrawl’s open-source version is licensed AGPL-3.0; Context.dev is a managed, closed-source API.
- You need long, live browser sessions. Firecrawl Interact bills 2 to 7 credits per browser minute; Context.dev runs up to five actions before a capture.
- You want third-party datasets in the same call, such as Apollo or Similarweb data through Firecrawl Alexandria.
- You want to try it with no API key at all. Firecrawl has a keyless free tier capped per IP address.
Teams that switched from Firecrawl
“Firecrawl was becoming very expensive for our needs. We outgrew their highest self-serve monthly plan. Context.dev was the first alternative that came to mind. Pricing was what triggered it, and excellent, responsive support sealed the deal.”
“Context.dev preserved full page content and JSON-LD on sites where Firecrawl struggled, provided useful metadata that let us remove much of our custom HTML parsing, and automatically refunded failed batch pages.”
A few things to know.
More details in the API documentation.
What is the best Firecrawl alternative?
Context.dev is a Firecrawl alternative for teams that scrape, crawl, and search the web in production. It covers the same jobs (Markdown and HTML scraping, screenshots, JSON extraction, browser actions, crawl, map, search, async batches, monitoring, and document parsing) with a lower price per credit and more concurrent requests on every paid plan. If you need to self-host, Firecrawl’s open-source version is the better fit.
Does Firecrawl charge extra for stealth or enhanced proxies?
No. Firecrawl’s enhanced proxies and its automatic retry cost the same 1 credit as a basic scrape, and Context.dev includes proxies and anti-bot handling in its 1 credit too. The cost differences are elsewhere: Firecrawl bills pages that return 403 or 404, adds 4 credits for highlights instead of 1, and limits zero data retention to Enterprise at 1 extra credit per page.
How does Context.dev pricing compare to Firecrawl?
Context.dev Pro is $90 a month for 100,000 credits and 100 concurrent requests, and Firecrawl Standard is $99 for 100,000 credits and 25 concurrent browsers. That is $0.90 vs $0.99 per 1,000 pages. Growth costs $300 vs $399, Scale costs $500 vs $749, and Pro overage is $2.00 per 1,000 credits vs $2.50.
How do Context.dev and Firecrawl compare in public benchmarks?
Context.dev leads on all four. On TRACE, the open-source daily benchmark that sends about 2,500 fresh pages to four scraping APIs with caching off and judges them without seeing the provider name, Context.dev returned useful content on 87.0% of 2,527 pages in the November 6, 2026 sample and Firecrawl on 82.3%, at $0.79 against $1.20 per 1,000 useful pages and a p95 of 8.9 s against 11.1 s. Context.dev has ranked first in every daily sample so far. On Scrapingbench, an agent with the same model, prompt, and limits finished 38 of 40 scrape tasks with Context.dev and 32 with Firecrawl, at 1.36¢ against 1.67¢ per finished task. In WebCrawlerAPI’s October 2026 test of 806 URLs, Context.dev returned usable Markdown on 92.1% of pages and Firecrawl on 89.7%, and mainContentOnly lifted its extraction F1 to 0.567. On Openbenchmarks’ factual lookup board, which sends the same 300 questions through 13 web search APIs with one extraction model and one judge, Context.dev scored 98.0% accuracy and Firecrawl 95.3%, at $4.49 against $5.24 per 1,000 correct answers. See the dated results and source links on our benchmarks page.
How much does web search with page content cost?
On Context.dev, search costs 1 credit per 10 results. Highlights, the passages from each result page that answer your query, add 1 credit per 10 results, and full-page Markdown adds 1 credit per page returned. Ten results with highlights cost 2 credits on both APIs; ten results with Markdown cost 11 credits on Context.dev and 12 on Firecrawl.
Can Context.dev run JSON extraction inside batches?
Yes. Since October 15, 2026, batches support every Scrape output, including JSON against your schema, screenshots, prebuilt parsers, and highlights. A batch takes up to 100,000 URLs, pages that fail are refunded when it settles, and results are kept for 180 days.
Can I migrate from Firecrawl to Context.dev easily?
Yes. Scrape (Markdown, HTML, screenshots, images, JSON), crawl, map, search, batch scraping, and change monitoring all have Context.dev equivalents, with SDKs for TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Go, and PHP. SiteGPT migrated off Firecrawl in less than a day.
When is Firecrawl the better choice?
Choose Firecrawl if you need to self-host (AGPL-3.0), run live multi-step browser sessions with Interact, or want Alexandria’s third-party datasets in the same call. Its keyless free tier is also handy for trying it without an account.
What rate limits and stability commitments does Context.dev document?
Each plan has a documented concurrency limit, and paid plans have no per-minute cap; a request over the limit returns 429 with a Retry-After header. The API is described by a public OpenAPI document, deprecated surfaces stay available for at least 90 days, incidents are posted at status.context.dev, and security reports are in the Trust Center at trust.context.dev.
More comparisons
Other web scraping APIs that teams compare with Context.dev, or see every comparison.
- Context.dev vs ScraperAPINo credit multipliers for JavaScript rendering or protected domains. Crawl, search, and JSON extraction on the same key.
- Context.dev vs ScrapingBeeJavaScript rendering, premium proxies, and stealth mode stack credits on ScrapingBee. Every page is 1 credit here.
- Context.dev vs ZenRowsA rendered page on premium proxies costs 25 credits on ZenRows. Pro covers 100,000 protected pages for $90.
Ready to switch from Firecrawl?
Point your scrape, crawl, map, and search calls at Context.dev and get 100,000 credits and 100 concurrent requests for $90, with 1,000 free credits a month to start.