Dumpling AI vs Firecrawl (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Firecrawl grades higher than Dumpling AI: 2.6 against 1.8 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Firecrawl grades higher on value for money, the free plan and features. They get the same grade on ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Dumpling AI
One API for web search, scraping, documents and social data
Firecrawl
Web search, scrape and crawl API that returns LLM-ready data
Which one is for you
Pick Dumpling AI if
- Fits if you want search, scraping and extraction from one account
- Works for people wiring up n8n or Make flows
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want to try it free, since there is no free plan or trial
- Tight if your usage is uneven: subscription credits do not roll over
- Watch out: credits per request go from one to several depending on the action
- Watch out: only yearly-billed prices were readable, and the Starter plan is held to 30 requests a minute
Pick Firecrawl if
- Fits if you feed web pages into an LLM and want Markdown back
- Works for people happy to self-host the open-source core
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you stay free: 1,000 credits, 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits
- Watch out: JSON, Question and Highlight formats add 4 credits a page
- Watch out: Agent, Browser and the managed dashboards are Cloud only, not in the open-source version
- Pricey if you scale: $83 for 100,000 credits and $333 for 500,000, and pay-as-you-go is for paid plans only
How we grade them
| 1.8GPADumpling AIWeak | 2.6GPAFirecrawlGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | C$40 a month on yearly billing, between this category's cheaper quarter ($19) and dearer quarter ($44.10). | B$16 a month on yearly billing for 5,000 credits, inside the cheapest quarter of this category ($19). Standard jumps to $83 for 100,000. |
| Free plan and trial | FNo free plan and no trial on the pricing page. | CA free plan with 1,000 credits a month and no card, but only 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits. |
| Features | CSearch, scraping, document extraction, and social and enrichment data in one place. Each action costs one or more credits, so it is hard to price a job up front. | BSearch, scrape, crawl, map and interact, with SDKs and an open-source core. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the core scraping job. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. It is an API, so you need a key and some code or an MCP client. | CNo store rating on record. It is a developer API, with keys and code to set up. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, but it lists Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, n8n and Make, with HTTP, CLI and MCP access. | BWeb only, but it plugs into LangChain, Claude, ChatGPT and Ollama and has SDKs. |
| Best for | search, scraping and extraction through one API | turning web pages into clean text for AI apps |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Dumpling AI and Firecrawl. How we grade
Price against what you get
Dumpling AI starts at $40 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Firecrawl starts at $16 a month and scores 2.7.
Firecrawl scores higher and starts $24 a month lower. Of the other SERP and SEO data APIs on the chart, 8 score higher than Dumpling AI for less, and none scores higher than Firecrawl for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Firecrawl is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Dumpling AI also covers research.
At a glance
| Dumpling AI | Firecrawl | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Paid | Free plan |
| Starts at | $40 per month, billed annually | $16 per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | None | 1,000 credits a month, no card needed, 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | DumplingAI | Firecrawl |
| Price read from | dumplingai.com | firecrawl.dev |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Dumpling AI
- The pricing page opens on yearly billing; the monthly-billed prices were not readable, so only per-month-billed-annually figures are shown.
- Subscription credits do not roll over, while separately bought credit packs never expire.
- Each request costs from one to several credits depending on the action; a separate credit cost list exists.
- The homepage mentions a free tier but gives no allowance, and the pricing page lists no free plan.
Firecrawl
- Per-page cost rises with format: JSON, Question and Highlight formats add 4 credits per page on Scrape and Crawl.
- The docs say Agent, Browser, managed dashboards, enhanced proxy paths and enterprise controls are Cloud-only.
- Pay-as-you-go (credits added in $5 steps up to a monthly limit you set) is for paid plans only.
- A page that returns an error status such as 403 or 404 still costs 1 credit.
Key features
Dumpling AI
- Search
- Web, news, maps and autocomplete lookups through one API, auto-routed or pinned to Serper, Perplexity or DataForSEO.
- Scraping
- Fetches static pages, rendered apps and full crawls, with Firecrawl, SpiderCloud and native routes supported.
- Document extraction
- Turns PDFs and other documents into text or structured data through doc-to-text and extract-document endpoints.
- Social and enrichment data
- YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn and Google Reviews data, plus email verification and company enrichment.
- CLI, MCP and HTTP
- The same capabilities are reachable from a command-line tool, an MCP server or plain HTTP calls.
Firecrawl
- Search with page content
- Searches the web and returns full page content from the results, not only links. Costs 2 credits per 10 results.
- Scrape to Markdown or JSON
- Turns a URL into Markdown, structured JSON, screenshots or other formats. A basic scrape costs 1 credit per page.
- Crawl and map
- Crawl follows a site page by page at 1 credit per page. Map lists a site's URLs for 1 credit per call.
- Interact
- Scrapes a page, then clicks, fills forms or navigates it from AI prompts or code, at 2 credits per browser minute.
- Open-source core
- The core scrape, crawl, map and search APIs can be self-hosted with Docker Compose, per the docs.
- SDKs and shared credits
- Python, Node.js, cURL and CLI examples are shown. One credit balance is shared across all endpoints.
Plans
Dumpling AI
Starter$40
per month, billed annually
1,200,000 credits per year, 30 requests per minute, basic support.
Pro$124
per month, billed annually
4,200,000 credits per year, 60 requests per minute, standard support.
Business$249
per month, billed annually
9,600,000 credits per year, 120 requests per minute, priority support.
Firecrawl
Free$0
1,000 credits a month (500 searches or 1,000 pages scraped), 2 concurrent requests.
Hobby$16
per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly)
5 concurrent requests, basic support, and extra credits at 1,000 per $5.
Standard$83
per month for 100,000 credits, billed annually ($99 billed monthly)
25 concurrent requests, standard support, extra credits at 2,000 per $5.
Growth$333
per month for 500,000 credits, billed annually ($399 billed monthly)
50 concurrent requests, priority support, extra credits at 2,500 per $5.
Scale$599
per month for 1,000,000 credits, billed annually ($749 billed monthly)
100 concurrent requests, priority support, extra credits at 5,000 per $5.
EnterpriseCustom
Custom credits and concurrency, dedicated support and SLA, SSO, zero-data retention.
Ways to pay less
Dumpling AI
- Annual discount
Yearly billing: 2 months free
The pricing toggle marks yearly billing as 2 months free compared with paying monthly.
Firecrawl
- Annual discount
Annual billing saves about 2 months
Annual prices are lower than monthly (Standard $83 against $99 a month); the homepage banner says 2 months free when billed annually.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Dumpling AI or Firecrawl?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Firecrawl is cheaper to start with: $16 a month, against $40 a month for Dumpling AI. Dumpling AI starts at $40 per month, billed annually, and Firecrawl starts at $16 per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, Dumpling AI or Firecrawl?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Firecrawl has a free plan. Dumpling AI does not.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.