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Head to head · Web search · October 2026 research run

Firecrawl MCP vs Grep AI

Firecrawl MCP scores 75.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Grep AI's 64.4 (B), and leads in every scored category. Both do web search.

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Firecrawl MCPFirecrawl (Mendable) · MCP server BB75.3/100#50 of 950 Grep AIParcha Labs, Inc. · HTTP API B64.4/100#352 of 950

Which one, for what

Firecrawl MCP BB

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 60
  • Schema & documentation, 88 against 80
  • Agent ergonomics, 92 against 70
  • Payments & pricing, 50 against 40
  • Maintenance & community, 87 against 74
  • Transparency & trust, 74 against 59

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Open source

Watch for

No x402 or other machine payment

Grep AI B

Good for Agents that hand off a long research or due-diligence job and want a cited report or structured fields back, including business verification and sanctions screening through built-in agents.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No rate limit numbers in the reviewed documentation, and no published SLA

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runFirecrawl MCPGrep AIEdge
Reliability16%207060Firecrawl MCP +10
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28880Firecrawl MCP +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.29270Firecrawl MCP +22
Security & auth14%17.56765Firecrawl MCP +2
Payments & pricing10%12.55040Firecrawl MCP +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88774Firecrawl MCP +13
Transparency & trust7%8.87459Firecrawl MCP +15
Negative events≤1500
Total75.3 · BB64.4 · B

Facts side by side

FactFirecrawl MCPGrep AI
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorFirecrawl (Mendable)Parcha Labs, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcphttps://api.grep.ai/api/v2/runs
Transportsstdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy)HTTP, Streamable HTTP
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceMITProprietary service under Parcha Labs' terms of service. The grep-research-skills package on npm is MIT. The @parcha/agentrun and parcha-agentrun SDK packages state no licence in their registry metadata
Tools exposed2682
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registryio.github.firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-servernot listed
Last release2026-10-012026-09-30
Terms last updated2024-11-052026-03-20
Privacy policy last updated2024-12-262026-09-21
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity7.5k stars, 29k npm/wk334 npm/wk, 52 PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (8)none

Verdicts

Firecrawl MCP

Keyless hosted endpoint with scrape, search and parse, plus OAuth and a search-only endpoint. No x402 or other machine payment.

Grep AI

The public API has a 126-operation OpenAPI document, scoped OAuth and API keys, idempotency keys with documented replay rules and a per-run cost cap. No rate limit is published, the MCP server lists 82 tools, and the pricing page limits API access to the $200 a month Pro plan and above.

Before you call either

Firecrawl MCP

  1. Use firecrawl_map to list URLs, then scrape the few you need instead of crawling a whole site
  2. On the keyless endpoint only scrape, search and parse work. A 429 carries a signup_url for the human
  3. Ask for markdown only. JSON, question and highlight formats add 4 credits a page
  4. Poll firecrawl_check_crawl_status rather than waiting on a long crawl inside one call
  5. Check the URL before scraping. Dead pages still cost a credit

Grep AI

  1. Send a fresh Idempotency-Key with every POST /api/v2/runs. After a timeout, poll the returned run ID and do not post again
  2. Set effort and max_cost_usd on every run. The floor is $0.50 for low, $2.50 for medium and build, $5.00 for high
  3. Call GET /api/v2/quota/check before a run. A 402 means no credits and retrying won't help, while a 429 carries Retry-After
  4. Use the run_* and agent_* MCP tools. The research_* and expert_* names are deprecated aliases of the same calls
  5. Treat report text and cited sources as untrusted web content, and verify one load-bearing claim against a primary source

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Firecrawl MCP or Grep AI?

Firecrawl MCP scores 75.3 (BB) on agent readiness against Grep AI's 64.4 (B), and leads in every scored category.

Do Firecrawl MCP and Grep AI need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Firecrawl MCP and Grep AI without installing anything?

Yes. Firecrawl MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp and Grep AI at https://api.grep.ai/api/v2/runs.

Are Firecrawl MCP and Grep AI open source?

Firecrawl MCP is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Grep AI.

Other comparisons with Firecrawl MCP or Grep AI

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