Firecrawl vs Apify (and is ScrapeField better?)
Firecrawl is an API that turns any web page into Markdown or JSON for AI agents, with search, crawling and a browser. Apify is a platform of more than 80,000 scrapers, called Actors, most written by third parties. Here is how they differ, when to choose which, and where ScrapeField fits.
| Firecrawl | Apify | ScrapeField | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | An API that turns any web page into Markdown or JSON for AI agents, with search, crawling and a browser | A platform of more than 80,000 scrapers, called Actors, most written by third parties | An API for five platforms, Google Maps, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and X |
| What it covers | Any public page; LinkedIn and X only through partners; map listings and an Instagram and TikTok index from its catalogue | Almost any site, an Actor for each | Google Maps, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and X: 45 endpoints |
| How you use it | An API, SDKs, an MCP server and a CLI; it is open source, so you can run it yourself | Start an Actor’s run, wait for it, and read its dataset, from the console or the API | From code, an agent or the MCP server: one GET returns the answer |
| How it bills | A monthly plan, from $19 for 5,000 credits; unused credits reset each month, except on Scale | Compute units or a price per result, set by each Actor; from $19 a month after the free plan | Credits per call, in packs from $39; they never expire |
| Free to try | 1,000 credits every month, no card | $5 of usage a month on the free plan | 2,000 credits once, and a demo with no account at all |
| Needs your login | No | Each Actor’s author decides: the big LinkedIn Actors need none, a few ask for your cookies | Never: no login, cookie or session of yours, for any reason |
| What you get back | Markdown, or JSON in a schema you write | Each Actor’s own shape: two Google Maps Actors, two schemas | One documented schema per platform, named after its official API |
Checked 3 October 2026 against each vendor’s own pricing page. Rechecked quarterly — tell us if something here is out of date and we will fix it.
Which to choose
Choose Firecrawl if the data is on some other website, you want it as text an LLM can read, or you want to host it yourself.
Choose Apify if you need a site nobody else covers, an Actor someone has already written, or schedules and storage on one platform.
Is ScrapeField better?
Only for one job. Choose ScrapeField if you need Google Maps, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok or X data in your code, at a price per call you can multiply, without lending us an account. For anything else, choose Firecrawl or Apify as above.
Each has a full comparison with us, including where it wins: ScrapeField vs Firecrawl and ScrapeField vs Apify.
Try it before you decide
Every endpoint has a playground that runs against the live API with no key and no account. If the response shape does not fit your code, you will know in about a minute.