Crawl4AI vs ScrapeGraphAI
Crawl4AI is an Open source, while ScrapeGraphAI is an AI extraction API. Crawl4AI fits best for: Python developers who want a free, self-hosted crawler for RAG/agent pipelines and full control over the stack. ScrapeGraphAI fits best for: Developers who want prompt-based structured extraction with the option to self-host the open-source library.
| Crawl4AI | ScrapeGraphAI | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Open source | AI extraction API |
| Starting price | $10/mo | $20/mo |
| Free tier | Library and self-hosting free (Apache-2.0); Crawl4AI Cloud includes 1,000 free credits/month (10 req/min) | 500 one-time credits, 10 req/min |
| Pricing model | free/self-hosted; cloud uses credits | credits |
| AI extraction | ||
| Structured JSON | ||
| JS rendering | ||
| Proxies / anti-bot | ||
| API | ||
| No-code UI | ||
| Open source | ||
| MCP server | ||
| Best for | Python developers who want a free, self-hosted crawler for RAG/agent pipelines and full control over the stack. | Developers who want prompt-based structured extraction with the option to self-host the open-source library. |
| Visit Crawl4AI | Visit ScrapeGraphAI |
Why choose Crawl4AI
- LLM extraction via any LiteLLM provider, plus CSS/XPath/regex
- Clean and 'fit' markdown output
- Playwright browser control, stealth, sessions, proxies
- Deep crawling strategies (BFS/DFS/best-first)
Watch out for
- You run and maintain the browsers and proxies yourself
- No built-in residential proxy network or managed unblocking
- LLM extraction costs depend on your own model provider
Why choose ScrapeGraphAI
- Describe what you want in natural language, get JSON
- Open-source Python library (MIT) with graph-based pipelines
- Hosted API v2 with extract, crawl and search
- Official MCP server (mcp.scrapegraphai.com)
Watch out for
- Free credits are one-time, not monthly
- Extraction costs 5 credits per call
- Smaller company than Firecrawl/Apify; anti-bot depth less proven
Our product
Only need structured JSON from pages?
BestAIScraper's extraction API takes a URL and a list of fields and returns typed JSON. Pay per use, no subscription.
Try it free