# Cloudflare Web Search API vs Firecrawl MCP (slim)

> Firecrawl MCP scores 75.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Cloudflare Web Search API's 62.1 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do web search. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-web-search-vs-firecrawl-mcp.md (~2,700 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-web-search-vs-firecrawl-mcp.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cloudflare-web-search-vs-firecrawl-mcp
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-06

Firecrawl MCP scores 75.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Cloudflare Web Search API's 62.1 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do web search.

- Cloudflare Web Search API: B 62.1, rank #226 of 460 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cloudflare-web-search.min.md
- Firecrawl MCP: BB 75.5, rank #32 of 460 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/firecrawl-mcp.min.md
- Cloudflare Web Search API, good for Agents and apps already on Cloudflare Workers or AI Gateway that want cheap snippet search ($0.25 per 1,000 with Ceramic.ai) on the same bill and logs as their inference.
- Firecrawl MCP, good for Agents that need the whole pipeline (find URLs, scrape to markdown, crawl, monitor) from one server, and for trying without an account. Ahead on Reliability, 70 against 55; Schema & documentation, 88 against 81; Agent ergonomics, 92 against 63; Payments & pricing, 50 against 20; Maintenance & community, 87 against 71. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Runs on your own machine; Open source; Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5.

| Category | Cloudflare Web Search API | Firecrawl MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 55 | 70 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 81 | 88 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 63 | 92 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 71 | 67 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 20 | 50 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 71 | 87 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 75 | 76 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Cloudflare Web Search API | Firecrawl MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Cloudflare, Inc. | Firecrawl (Mendable) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for web search | $0.25 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Cloudflare's terms. Each search provider's own terms are linked from the providers page | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 26 |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-10-02 | 2026-10-01 |
| Popularity | none | 7.5k stars, 29k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (8) |