Firecrawl vs ZenRows (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Firecrawl grades higher than ZenRows: 2.6 against 2.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Oct 24, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Firecrawl grades higher on features. They get the same grade on value for money, the free plan, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Firecrawl
Web search, scrape and crawl API that returns LLM-ready data
ZenRows
Web scraping API for protected sites, priced by monthly credits
Which one is for you
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
Pick ZenRows if
- Fits if you scrape protected sites and want Google results from the same credits
- Works for AI agents that need web pages as Markdown or JSON
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want a fixed SERP format, as the result groups vary with what Google or Bing shows
- Watch out: a page costs 1 credit plain, 5 rendered, 10 on premium proxies and 25 with both
- Watch out: residential bandwidth draws 25,000 credits per GB and the Browser 5 credits a minute
- Tight if you're on Free, which stops at 5,000 credits with no top-ups until the next month
- Pricey if your volume grows, as each plan's price steps up with its credit allowance
How we grade them
| 2.6GPAFirecrawlGood | 2.4GPAZenRowsFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | 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. | BBuild is $16 a month on yearly billing, $19 monthly, inside this category's cheaper quarter, for 45,000 credits. A page is 1 credit plain and 25 with rendering and premium proxies, so that's 1,800 to 45,000 pages. |
| Free plan and trial | CA free plan with 1,000 credits a month and no card, but only 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits. | CA free plan for good with no card: 5,000 credits a month with every tool except standalone residential proxies. At 25 credits for a rendered page on premium proxies that's 200 pages, and there are no top-ups. |
| Features | 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. | CFetch past anti-bot walls, Extract to JSON with no selectors, Crawl, Batch and a real Browser. The gap is in the listing: search results come from parsing a Google or Bing results page, so the groups returned vary with what the page shows. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. It is a developer API, with keys and code to set up. | CJudged on how fast a developer gets a first result: Python, Node and Go SDKs, a CLI and an MCP server, all open source. No rating on record, and a request's cost changes with rendering and proxy choices. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, but it plugs into LangChain, Claude, ChatGPT and Ollama and has SDKs. | BWeb, with an API, SDKs, a CLI and an MCP server for Claude, Cursor and Codex, plus Clay, Make, n8n, Zapier, LangChain and LlamaIndex. No desktop or phone app, so B is the top. |
| Best for | turning web pages into clean text for AI apps | scraping protected pages on one credit balance |
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: Firecrawl and ZenRows. How we grade
Price against what you get
Firecrawl starts at $16 a month and scores 2.7 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. ZenRows starts at $16 a month and scores 2.3.
Firecrawl scores higher for the same starting price. Of the other SERP and SEO data APIs on the chart, none scores higher than Firecrawl for less, and 1 scores higher than ZenRows 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.
- Firecrawl also covers AI agents.
At a glance
| Firecrawl | ZenRows | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $16 per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly) | $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | 1,000 credits a month, no card needed, 2 concurrent requests and low rate limits. | 5,000 credits a month with every tool except standalone residential proxies, 5 concurrent requests and community support. No card needed. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Firecrawl | Zenrows |
| Price read from | firecrawl.dev | zenrows.com |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
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.
ZenRows
- A standard page costs 1 credit, 5 with JavaScript rendering, 10 with premium proxies and 25 with both; residential bandwidth is 25,000 credits per GB.
- Search results come from fetching a Google or Bing results address and parsing the page, so the groups returned vary with what the page shows.
- The free plan stops at 5,000 credits until the next month; paid plans can buy top-ups up to ten times a billing period.
- Each paid plan's price rises with its credit allowance, in three steps (five for Scale).
Key features
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.
ZenRows
- Fetch
- Returns any page as HTML, Markdown, JSON or a screenshot, getting past anti-bot walls, CAPTCHAs and fingerprint checks on protected sites.
- Extract
- Detects the data on a page and returns it as JSON with no selectors or schema to write. It currently costs nothing on top of the Fetch it uses.
- Search results as JSON
- Send a Google or Bing results address with a country and get organic results, related questions, videos and other groups back with their positions.
- Crawl and Batch
- Crawl collects every page behind a starting address, each billed as a Fetch; Batch runs large queued jobs with retries, webhooks and status tracking.
- Browser
- Drives a real browser for pages that need clicks, forms, logins or a session kept across a long job, billed at 5 credits a minute plus bandwidth.
- MCP server, CLI and SDKs
- An MCP server for Claude, Cursor and Codex, a command-line tool, and Python, Node and Go SDKs, all published as open source under MIT.
Plans
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.
ZenRows
Free$0
5,000 credits a month, refreshed monthly with no rollover or top-ups, 5 concurrent requests and community support.
Build$16
per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly)
20 concurrent requests, email support and top-ups. Rises to $33 a month for 120,000 credits ($39 billed monthly).
Launch$58
per month for 250,000 credits, billed annually ($69 billed monthly)
50 concurrent requests and chat support. Rises to $108 a month for 700,000 credits ($129 billed monthly).
Growth$166
per month for 1.2M credits, billed annually ($199 billed monthly)
100 concurrent requests, priority support and the residential network at scale. Rises to $333 a month for 3M credits ($399 monthly).
Scale$458
per month for 5M credits, billed annually ($549 billed monthly)
200 to 400 concurrent requests and committed capacity options. Rises to $2,499 a month for 45M credits ($2,999 monthly).
EnterpriseCustom
Committed volume, 500 to 1,000+ concurrent requests, an SLA, a DPA and a dedicated account manager. Through sales.
Ways to pay less
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.
ZenRows
- Annual discount
Two months free with annual billing
Zenrows says paying yearly gives two months free (pay for 10, get 12), shown as a 17% saving, with the year's credits up front.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Firecrawl or ZenRows?
As of Nov 12, 2026, they start at the same price. Firecrawl starts at $16 per month for 5,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly), and ZenRows starts at $16 per month for 45,000 credits, billed annually ($19 billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, Firecrawl or ZenRows?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Firecrawl and ZenRows have a free plan.
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.