Firecrawl Alternatives 2026
Firecrawl is a web data API that bills in credits (R33, R34). It is not on the coding ranking. This page compares Apify, Browserbase and Browserless, the three alternatives whose official pricing pages we checked on 2026-10-16.
Short answer
Apify is the closest alternative for scraping at scale. It runs prebuilt scrapers it calls Actors and bills compute units and proxies. Browserbase and Browserless are managed browsers that your own code drives, so they fit when you need a live browser session rather than a page-to-text endpoint.
Firecrawl’s free tier is 1,000 credits a month, and its Hobby plan lists 5,000 credits at $16 a month billed annually (R33). Each vendor meters a different thing, so compare the number of pages or sessions you need rather than the headline plan name.
Options compared
The table lists each option with its position on the 2026 ranking, where it has one, and the price as its cited source states it. Options marked not ranked were added from their own pricing pages.
| option | 2026 ranking | category | price as listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apify | not ranked | scraping platform | Starter $19/mo ($17 annual, $19 usage); Scale $199/mo ($179 annual) (R35) |
| Browserbase | not ranked | managed browsers | Developer $20/mo (100 browser hours, then $0.12/hr) (R37) |
| Browserless | not ranked | managed browsers | Prototyping $25/mo annual (20k units); Starter $140/mo annual (180k units) (R38) |
Which option fits which need
Apify
Pick it when a prebuilt scraper for a known site saves you from writing one. The Free plan includes $5 of platform usage a month. Compute units cost $0.20 on Free and Starter, $0.16 on Scale and $0.13 on Business (R36). Unused platform usage expires at the end of each billing cycle (R36).
Browserbase
Pick it when your agent needs a remote browser with concurrency and captcha solving. Developer includes 25 concurrent browsers and captcha solving, and Startup at $99 a month includes 500 browser hours (R37). The free plan lists no captcha solving.
Browserless
Pick it when you want a browser endpoint for an existing Playwright or Puppeteer script. Prototyping is $25 a month billed annually with 20,000 units and 10 concurrent browsers (R38). A unit is up to 30 seconds of browser time per connection, so long sessions use more units (R38).
How to choose in one trial
Run the same small piece of work on Firecrawl and on your top option from this list. Compare the setup time, the first working result, the way each tool meters usage, and the price of the plan that covers what you need. Count the real volume first: one trial on your own work tells you more than any table here.
Limits of this page
- Firecrawl is not on the ranking and none of the three alternatives is either. Positions are shown as not ranked.
- Credits, compute units, browser hours and units are different meters. No single price line is a valid cost comparison.
- Firecrawl’s page states that its current credit rates are effective from 2026-09-04. We quote them as the page states them (R33).
- We did not run an extraction job on any of these services and make no claim about data quality or coverage.
This page is not affiliated with Firecrawl and is not an official page. Each claim names its source in the method and the fact register.
FAQ
Is Apify a replacement for Firecrawl?
For many scraping jobs it can be, but the model is different. Apify sells a marketplace of prebuilt Actors, billed per event or per usage (R35, R36). Firecrawl offers one API that returns content for each credit spent (R34). If you want a single endpoint with a predictable credit count, Firecrawl is the simpler fit.
Which of these has a free tier?
All four have one. Firecrawl includes 1,000 credits a month (R33), Apify includes $5 of usage (R35), Browserbase includes one browser hour and three concurrent browsers (R37), and Browserless includes 1,000 units a month (R38). Free limits change, so check each page before you build.
Do these services handle captchas?
Browserbase lists captcha solving from its Developer plan upward, and not on Free (R37). Browserless lists automatic captcha solving on its Free plan, billed at 10 units per successful solve (R38). The Firecrawl and Apify pricing pages we checked do not list captcha solving as a plan feature, so confirm in their documentation before you depend on it.