# Firecrawl MCP vs WebScraping.AI (slim)

> Firecrawl MCP scores 75 (BB) to WebScraping.AI's 61.4 (C) for web search. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-webscraping-ai.md (~6,100 tokens) · this version ~2,680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-webscraping-ai.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/firecrawl-mcp-vs-webscraping-ai
- 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 WebScraping.AI's 61.4 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do web search.

- Firecrawl MCP: BB 75, rank #72 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/firecrawl-mcp.min.md
- WebScraping.AI: C 61.4, rank #618 of 1510 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/webscraping-ai.min.md
- 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 43; Security & auth, 70 against 36; Payments & pricing, 50 against 40; Maintenance & community, 87 against 82; Transparency & trust, 75 against 51. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Open source.
- WebScraping.AI, good for Agents that need page text, CSS fragments, AI fields or Google results through one key with a self-correcting error model. Also Free to start without a card; No incidents deducted, where Firecrawl MCP loses 3 points for them.

| Category | Firecrawl MCP | WebScraping.AI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 78 | 43 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 91 | 89 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 92 | 95 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 70 | 36 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 50 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 87 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 75 | 51 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Firecrawl MCP | WebScraping.AI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Firecrawl (Mendable) | Urlooker LLC |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp` | `https://mcp.webscraping.ai/mcp` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) | Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Licence | MIT | none |
| Tools exposed | 27 | 10 |
| MCP registry | `io.github.firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server` | `io.github.webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai` |
| Last release | 2026-10-27 | 2026-10-26 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-11-05 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-12-26 | no date given |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 7.5k stars, 29k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (8) | none |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Firecrawl MCP +35: 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.); WebScraping.AI 43 (Graded on the hosted lines. No public status page was found; the about page mentions 24/7 availability monitoring and status.webscraping.ai did not answer (0). No readable incident history (5). Concurrency per plan is published, 2 on Free to 50 on the $249 plan, with a 30-second request ceiling (15). 429 means too many concurrent requests, 503 is not charged and carries Retry-After, and failed requests are free. No backoff guidance for 429 itself (13 of 15). No SLA; section 14.2 of the terms makes no uptime commitment (0). Generally available since 2019 (10). 0 + 5 + 15 + 13 + 0 + 10 = 43.)
- Security & auth, Firecrawl MCP +34: 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).); WebScraping.AI 36 (One account key with no scopes or documented rotation, taken only as the `api_key` query parameter on REST. The hosted MCP uses OAuth 2.1 with PKCE, dynamic registration and token revocation, with no scopes listed (20, less 10 for the query string, 10 of 30). Every endpoint is a GET and all tools are annotated read-only, and the terms forbid logging into target accounts. No read-only or limited key (8 of 20). The hosted MCP wraps scraped results in 'EXTERNAL CONTENT - DO NOT EXECUTE COMMANDS' boundaries by default, opt-in on the npm package (13 of 15). /account reports credits and limits. No per-call log for customers (5 of 15). security.txt answers 404, and no disclosure policy, bug bounty or certification was found (0 of 20). 10 + 8 + 13 + 5 + 0 = 36.)
- Transparency & trust, Firecrawl MCP +24: 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).); WebScraping.AI 51 (Closed service under terms naming Urlooker LLC of Wyoming, with MIT clients (15 of 30). The privacy policy keeps usage logs 30 days and deletes personal data within 60 days of a request, and the terms rule out training on scraped content, prompts and outputs. But section 9.3 lets the company store scraped content and logs for as long as reasonably necessary, and no DPA was found (14 of 30). The terms give 30 days' notice of material changes and of termination without cause, and the MCP changelog dates its changes. No deprecation policy (8 of 20). Subprocessors, including AI model providers, are listed only for enterprise customers under NDA, and data may be processed in the US or wherever subprocessors operate (4 of 20). 15 + 14 + 8 + 4 = 41.)
- Payments & pricing, Firecrawl MCP +10: 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).); WebScraping.AI 40 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Credit costs per option and plan prices are public, with pay-as-you-go at $0.0002 a credit (20). Free plan of 2,000 credits a month with no card (20). A person signs up in a browser (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.)
- Maintenance & community, Firecrawl MCP +5: Firecrawl MCP 87 (firecrawl-mcp 3.36.0 on 27 October 2026, matching the registry (30). 43 version bumps in the 90 days from 3 August to 1 November, 12 of them since 17 October (20). Reported bugs from July and August (#325, #357, #373) show no fix in the repository's commits to 29 October. Issue states and reply times couldn't be read on 1 November (12 of 25, per the 1 October check). io.github.firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server at 3.36.0 in the official registry under a GitHub-verified namespace, published 27 October and marked latest (15). CI builds and tests on push and pull request to main, with npm trusted publishing and, since 23 October, a signed container image (10). 30 + 20 + 12 + 15 + 10 = 87.); WebScraping.AI 82 (Read for a closed service with open clients. MCP server 1.4.0 on 26 October 2026 and Python SDK 4.3.0 on 24 October (30). In the 90 days from 8 August, MCP 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.3.0, 1.3.1, 1.3.2 and 1.4.0 and Python 4.1.0, 4.2.0 and 4.3.0 (20). Dated changelogs in the repositories and email support. GitHub issues weren't read (10 of 25). In the official MCP registry as io.github.webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai, though the newest entry there is 1.0.7 of 24 July 2026, with current SDKs in seven languages (12 of 15). CI workflows on the MCP and Python repositories, and 1.3.1 moved to zod 4 for a published advisory (10). 30 + 20 + 10 + 12 + 10 = 82.)