# Decodo Web Data API vs Firecrawl MCP (slim)

> Firecrawl MCP scores 75 (BB) to Decodo Web Data's 61.8 (C) for web search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-firecrawl-mcp.md (~6,950 tokens) · this version ~3,480 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-firecrawl-mcp.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/decodo-vs-firecrawl-mcp
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Firecrawl MCP scores 75 (BB) on agent readiness against Decodo Web Data API's 61.8 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do web search.

- Decodo Web Data API: C 61.8, rank #591 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/decodo.min.md
- Firecrawl MCP: BB 75, rank #72 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/firecrawl-mcp.min.md
- Decodo Web Data API, good for Agents that need pages, Google results and e-commerce or social templates through one key with published per-1,000 prices and a free plan. Also Free to start without a card; No incidents deducted, where Firecrawl MCP loses 3 points for them.
- 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, 78 against 59; Schema & documentation, 91 against 67; Agent ergonomics, 92 against 82; Security & auth, 70 against 45; Payments & pricing, 50 against 40; Transparency & trust, 75 against 62. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Open source.

| Category | Decodo Web Data API | Firecrawl MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 59 | 78 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 67 | 91 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 82 | 92 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 45 | 70 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 50 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 87 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 62 | 75 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Decodo Web Data API | Firecrawl MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Decodo (UAB "Data troops") | Firecrawl (Mendable) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.decodo.com/mcp` | `https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP, stdio | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) |
| Price for web search | $0.75 per 1,000 requests | not published |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 33 | 27 |
| MCP registry | `io.github.Decodo/mcp-server` | `io.github.firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-10-30 | 2026-10-27 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-06-16 | 2024-11-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-21 | 2024-12-26 |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | none | 7.5k stars, 29k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (8) |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, Firecrawl MCP +25: Decodo Web Data API 45 (One Bearer API key per Web Data API subscription with no scopes, and no rotation or revocation steps found in the reviewed docs. The hosted MCP server adds OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and dynamic registration, but its metadata advertises no scopes. No query-string credential is documented (20 of 30). Scraping only reads, and the MCP tools are annotated read-only, but `http_method: POST` sends requests to target sites and there is no read-only key (8 of 20). No guidance on treating scraped content as untrusted was found in the docs or the MCP README (0 of 15). The dashboard statistics API reports traffic by target, and each response carries an `x-task-id`. No per-call audit log (7 of 15). ISO/IEC 27001:2022 for proxies and the Scraping API, a SafeBase trust centre and KYC at signup. security.txt answers 404 and no disclosure policy or bug bounty was found (10 of 20). 20 + 8 + 0 + 7 + 10 = 45.); Firecrawl MCP 70 (OAuth on the hosted endpoint `/v2/mcp-oauth`, a separate OAuth identity for the search-only endpoint, and plain revocable keys as `Authorization: Bearer`. Keys locked to endpoints and formats, and IP allowlists, are Enterprise only (25 of 30). The README says never to put a key in the server URL. 3.29.1 removed the credential-in-path route from the repository's service image, and it was never documented as an option, so no deduction. 3.36.0 checks Host and Origin in local HTTP mode against DNS rebinding. Keyless and search-only surfaces limit what a session can do, write tools carry destructiveHint, and Alexandria provider terms need explicit user consent and `confirmed: true` (18 of 20). Retained Alexandria results tell the model that source content is data, not instructions, and Enterprise Threat Protection blocks risky URLs, off by default. The API's opt-in `checkPromptInjection` classifier is now a top-level scrape option for any format, markdown included, and for crawl, search and monitors (+4 credits, 403 `SCRAPE_PROMPT_INJECTION_DETECTED`). The MCP tool schemas still don't expose it, so an agent using this server can't turn it on (8 of 15). firecrawl_credit_usage shows spend, by endpoint and by day since 3.34.0, but its description says it can't attribute single jobs, URLs or MCP clients, and we found no per-call log for operators (5 of 15). SOC 2 Type II on the Enterprise page, and security.txt valid to 10 June 2027 with a Bugcrowd vulnerability disclosure programme, re-read on 1 November. CVE-2026-116066 (High in GitHub's unreviewed database, published 25 October), a DNS-rebinding SSRF in the Firecrawl API's Playwright service before 2.11.586, was fixed in a public commit on 21 October that cites issue #5256. No bug bounty found (14 of 20).)
- Schema & documentation, Firecrawl MCP +24: Decodo Web Data API 67 (No OpenAPI or similar contract for the Web Data API; the two published specs cover the proxy account API and dashboard statistics. The MCP server types every input with zod (12 of 25). llms.txt indexes 401 guide pages, each served as Markdown (10). Tool descriptions state purpose and when to use a tool, such as scrape_as_markdown 'when no site-specific tool fits', and link the docs page (14 of 20). Parameters are tabled with defaults, with enumerated proxy_pool, headless and device_type, but `headers` is a free object and POST bodies are base64 strings (10 of 15). Curl examples on every page, a response code table with fixes and billing, and parser status codes (14 of 15). Paths are versioned at /v1 and the MCP server's releases are tagged by semantic-release, but no API changelog was found (7 of 15). 12 + 10 + 14 + 10 + 14 + 7 = 67.); Firecrawl MCP 91 (Public OpenAPI at docs.firecrawl.dev/api-reference/v2-openapi.json (and v1), and zod schemas on every MCP tool (25). llms.txt and Markdown docs (10). The README and server instructions say when not to use a tool, for example to look elsewhere when a browser session must be driven step by step across many calls, and 3.33.4 added when-to-use sentences to the search and scrape descriptions (18 of 20). Typed inputs with enums, but open issue #325 counts 132 parameters with no description and #373 reports a published schema that disagrees with the API, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 1 November. 3.35.0 briefly advertised record-typed inputs as closed empty objects, fixed in 3.36.0 the next day (11 of 15). Examples throughout, keyless failures return structured recovery payloads with `next_actions` and `signup_url`, and an Errors reference lists each HTTP status and error string with cause, remedy and whether to retry (15 of 15). A CHANGELOG and firecrawl.dev/changelog. The CHANGELOG now has dated entries for 3.29.0 to 3.36.0, but still skips 3.22 to 3.24 and 3.26 to 3.28 and lists 3.25.0 as unreleased (12 of 15).)
- Reliability, Firecrawl MCP +19: Decodo Web Data API 59 (Graded on the hosted lines. Instatus page at status.decodo.com with Web Data API and each legacy scraping API as components, with RSS history (20). In the 90 days to 6 November, every scraping API was out for 2 hours 51 minutes on 30 October, the main outage, with outages of 13 minutes on 26 October and 21 minutes on 15 October across the same components. The rest of the incidents hit proxies, payments or the website. One major (10). Per-plan request rates are published, 10 to 200 a second, though the same page's FAQ says paid plans support 10 to 50 (12 of 15). The response code table tells the agent to wait a couple of minutes on 429 and to retry 500, 524 and 613, which aren't billed, and the MCP client backs off exponentially. No Retry-After or idempotency guidance (7 of 15). No SLA; the License Agreement disclaims uninterrupted service (0). Web Data API is the current, unflagged product (10). 20 + 10 + 12 + 7 + 0 + 10 = 59.); Firecrawl MCP 78 (Better Stack status page at status.firecrawl.dev with history (20). Four incidents in the 90 days to 1 November 2026, all partial degradations of api.firecrawl.dev, the longest 56 minutes on the /interact `prompt` field on 27 August (06:00 to 06:56 UTC in the feed) and the others 7, 16 and 46 minutes, with none after 15 September. The 20 July /interact incident has left the window (20). Rate limits published per plan and endpoint, from 10 scrapes a minute on Free to 10,000 on Scale, plus concurrent browsers and a per-IP daily cap for keyless use, re-read on 1 November (15). The Errors reference, linked from the rate-limit page, says 429s carry `Retry-After` when available, marks every error retryable or not, and gives backoff advice per code. No idempotency keys for calls that start crawl, agent or monitor jobs (13 of 15). SLA on Enterprise only, per the pricing page, with no terms published (0). GA (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 13 + 0 + 10 = 78.)
- Transparency & trust, Firecrawl MCP +13: Decodo Web Data API 62 (Closed service under a public License Agreement naming UAB "Data troops", with MIT clients (15 of 30). The privacy policy (21 May 2026) gives retention periods by category, says Decodo is processor for scraping and doesn't log proxy traffic content, and a DPA is published. Its general two-year rule sits beside longer specific periods without saying which wins, and no retention for scraped results beyond the 24-hour async window was found (18 of 30). The migration guide says legacy APIs keep working with no end date, and the License Agreement allows discontinuing the service without notice or refunds (6 of 20). The privacy policy names Stripe, DeepL and Paddle, but no subprocessor list or data locations were found in it or the trust centre (6 of 20). 15 + 18 + 6 + 6 = 45.); Firecrawl MCP 75 (MIT (30). Zero data retention on Enterprise and a DPA from Standard up, but the privacy policy, re-read on 1 November, still dates from 26 December 2024, keeps personal data until you ask for deletion and gives no retention period for scraped content (12 of 30). The v1 endpoints are kept as legacy alongside v2 and the pricing change of 4 September 2026 was dated, but we found no deprecation policy (8 of 20). Data stored in the United States, and Stripe, PostHog, Crisp and Vercel Analytics are named, with no full subprocessor list (10 of 20).)
- Agent ergonomics, Firecrawl MCP +10: Decodo Web Data API 82 (The hosted MCP server lists 24 tools, with a `toolsets` parameter to load only web, search, ecommerce, social_media or ai, and `tokenLimit` caps page text at 45,000 characters by default with a truncation notice (20 of 25). Markdown output, parsing for templates, crawl `limit`, path filters and cursor paging, search paging, map limits and batch tasks (18 of 20). Documented status codes with a solution for each, `status_code` and `parse_status_code` in bodies, but 429 covers both the plan rate and a domain throttled for a low success rate (15 of 20). Every tool carries readOnlyHint true and destructiveHint false, server-side failures aren't billed and async results can be re-read for 24 hours. No idempotency key (16 of 20). Only `url` or `query` is required, though the default premium pool costs about twice the standard. Official Python, TypeScript and Go SDKs (13 of 15). 20 + 18 + 15 + 16 + 13 = 82.); Firecrawl MCP 92 (27 tools in the full profile by the README's count (28 on the hosted endpoint with a key, per the contract snapshot), 3 on the keyless endpoint and 9 on the search-only endpoint, and env flags drop the feedback tools (23 of 25, the 11 to 30 band plus 8 for fixed subsets). Format selection, main-content filtering, page limits on map and crawl, and results over 20,000 estimated tokens handed off to retained storage instead of inline (20). Recovery payloads with next actions, and since 3.35.0 API refusals carry a machine-readable `code`, `status` and `retryAfterSeconds` in structuredContent, but schema mismatches reported in open issues (17 of 20). readOnlyHint or destructiveHint on all 28 tools of the hosted full profile, with monitor delete and interact stop marked destructive, and since 3.35.0 idempotentHint on the crawl, agent, interact and monitor tools. No idempotency keys for crawl or agent jobs (17 of 20). One required argument on most tools, and official SDKs in Python and Node (15).)
- Payments & pricing, Firecrawl MCP +10: Decodo Web Data API 40 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-1,000 rates for every endpoint, pool and plan are public in the billing docs (20). Free plan of 10,000 requests a month with no card (20). A person signs up in the dashboard; the MCP OAuth flow also needs a dashboard approval (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.); Firecrawl MCP 50 (No x402, MPP or L402 in the README, pricing page or agent onboarding guide, re-read on 1 November (0). Plans are public with per-endpoint credit costs (1 a page, search 2 per 10 results, +4 for JSON formats), and $5 top-ups only on paid plans, so between plan-only and per-unit (15 of 20). Free plan with 1,000 credits a month, no card (20). The hosted keyless endpoint gives scrape, search and parse with no signup, but crawl, map and agent need a key. The agent onboarding guide adds key routes through Stripe Projects and, on supported platforms, a WorkOS ID-JAG assertion, both of which start from a person's existing login (15 of 20).)