# Firecrawl MCP vs Grep AI

> Firecrawl MCP scores 75.3 (BB) to Grep AI's 64.4 (B) for web search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-grep-ai
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-grep-ai.md (~3,000 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-grep-ai.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-grep-ai.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

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.

- Firecrawl MCP: grade BB, 75.3/100, rank #50 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/firecrawl-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/firecrawl-mcp.json
- Grep AI: grade B, 64.4/100, rank #352 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/grep-ai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/grep-ai.json
- Best web scraping and crawling APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/web-scrapers/index.md
- All 167 scrapers comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/web-scrapers/index.md
- Best web search APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/search/index.md
- All 129 search comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/search/index.md

## 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.

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


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Firecrawl MCP | Grep AI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 60 | Firecrawl MCP +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 80 | Firecrawl MCP +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 70 | Firecrawl MCP +22 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 67 | 65 | Firecrawl MCP +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 40 | Firecrawl MCP +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 74 | Firecrawl MCP +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 59 | Firecrawl MCP +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **75.3 · BB** | **64.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Firecrawl MCP | Grep AI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Firecrawl (Mendable) | Parcha Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp` | `https://api.grep.ai/api/v2/runs` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary 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 exposed | 26 | 82 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-11-05 | 2026-03-20 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-12-26 | 2026-09-21 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 7.5k stars, 29k npm/wk | 334 npm/wk, 52 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (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.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-grep-ai.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-grep-ai.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "firecrawl-mcp", "b": "grep-ai"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare firecrawl-mcp grep-ai`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/firecrawl-mcp.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/grep-ai.json

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- [Brave Search API + MCP vs Firecrawl MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/brave-search-mcp-vs-firecrawl-mcp.md)
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