Firecrawl vs Outscraper (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. Outscraper is a Google Maps specialist: places, reviews and photos, plus other Google products and review sites. Here is how they differ, when to choose which, and where ScrapeField fits.
| Firecrawl | Outscraper | 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 Google Maps specialist: places, reviews and photos, plus other Google products and review sites | 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 | Google Maps, Google Search, Shopping and Play, about 25 review sites, and contacts from businesses’ own websites | 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 | An API with tasks you poll or a webhook, a no-code app, and file exports | 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 | Per record, in tiers that reset every 30 days: $3.00 per 1,000 places, $1.00 past 100,000 | Credits per call, in packs from $39; they never expire |
| Free to try | 1,000 credits every month, no card | The first 500 places, reviews and photos every 30 days; a card before any use | 2,000 credits once, and a demo with no account at all |
| Needs your login | No | No | Never: no login, cookie or session of yours, for any reason |
| What you get back | Markdown, or JSON in a schema you write | Outscraper’s own field names; Excel, CSV or Parquet | One documented schema per platform, named after its official API |
Checked 9 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 Rechecked quarterly — tell us if something here is out of date and we will fix it.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 Outscraper if you want emails and contacts from businesses’ own websites, other Google products or review sites beside Maps, or a spreadsheet without code.
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 Outscraper as above.
Each has a full comparison with us, including where it wins: ScrapeField vs Firecrawl and ScrapeField vs Outscraper.
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.