Firecrawl vs Zyte API
Firecrawl is an AI extraction API, while Zyte API is a Scraping API. Firecrawl fits best for: Developers building LLM/RAG apps or agents who want clean markdown or JSON from any URL with minimal setup. Zyte API fits best for: Python/Scrapy teams that want a reliable unblocking API and pay-per-success billing.
| Firecrawl | Zyte API | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | AI extraction API | Scraping API |
| Starting price | $19/mo | Pay as you go |
| Free tier | 1,000 credits/month, 2 concurrent requests, no credit card | $5 free credit valid for 30 days |
| Pricing model | credits | per 1K successful responses, tiered by site difficulty |
| AI extraction | ||
| Structured JSON | ||
| JS rendering | ||
| Proxies / anti-bot | ||
| API | ||
| No-code UI | ||
| Open source | ||
| MCP server | ||
| Best for | Developers building LLM/RAG apps or agents who want clean markdown or JSON from any URL with minimal setup. | Python/Scrapy teams that want a reliable unblocking API and pay-per-success billing. |
| Visit Firecrawl | Visit Zyte API |
Why choose Firecrawl
- Scrape, crawl, map and search endpoints
- Clean markdown output for LLMs
- LLM-based JSON extraction with a schema or prompt
- Agent endpoint (preview) and browser interact sessions
Watch out for
- JSON extraction costs 5x a plain scrape (1 + 4 credits)
- No pay-as-you-go on the free plan
- Self-hosted version lacks some cloud-only features
Why choose Zyte API
- Automatic ban handling and proxy rotation
- Browser rendering and actions
- AI-powered automatic extraction for products, articles, jobs etc.
- Native Scrapy integration and Scrapy Cloud hosting
Watch out for
- Per-site tier pricing makes costs hard to estimate upfront
- Browser rendering on hard sites gets expensive (up to ~$16/1K PAYG)
- Best value requires a monthly commitment
Our product
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