# Firecrawl MCP vs Scrapeless

> Firecrawl MCP has a score of 75.5 (BB) against Scrapeless's 54.3 (C). Both do web search. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 42 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapeless
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapeless.md (~2,050 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapeless.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-scrapeless.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: 2026-10-05

Firecrawl MCP has a score of 75.5 (BB) against Scrapeless's 54.3 (C). Both do web search. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 42 points.

- Firecrawl MCP: grade BB, 75.5/100, rank #34 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/firecrawl-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/firecrawl-mcp.json
- Scrapeless: grade C, 54.3/100, rank #326 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapeless.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapeless.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Firecrawl MCP for schema & documentation (+22), agent ergonomics (+42), security & auth (+32), payments & pricing (+15), maintenance & community (+6), transparency & trust (+20).

Pick Scrapeless for reliability (+5).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Firecrawl MCP | Scrapeless | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 75 | Scrapeless +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 88 | 66 | Firecrawl MCP +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 92 | 50 | Firecrawl MCP +42 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 67 | 35 | Firecrawl MCP +32 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 50 | 35 | Firecrawl MCP +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 81 | Firecrawl MCP +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 56 | Firecrawl MCP +20 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **75.5 · BB** | **54.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Firecrawl MCP | Scrapeless |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Firecrawl (Mendable) | Scrapeless (NST Labs Tech) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp` | `https://api.scrapeless.com` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 26 | 25 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server` | `io.github.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-16 |
| Popularity | 7.5k stars, 29k npm/wk | 169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (8) | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

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

**Scrapeless.** Hosted streamable HTTP MCP at api.scrapeless.com/mcp with header auth, plus a stdio package, both in the official MCP registry. llms.txt quotes Deep SerpApi at $0.1 per 1,000 while the plan data charges $1 per 1,000 for Google Search.

## 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

### Scrapeless

1. Use scrape_markdown for reading pages and save the browser_* tools for clicks and logins, since browser time bills by the hour
2. Call browser_close when done so the session and its billing stop
3. Set limit on crawl_start. Unset, it defaults to 10,000 pages
4. Crawls are asynchronous. Call crawl_start, then poll crawl_result with the returned id
5. Set SCRAPELESS_API_KEY for the stdio server. Older guides use SCRAPELESS_KEY, which still works as a fallback

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