Firecrawl
vs
Firecrawl vs Diffbot
Firecrawl is the LLM-native crawler that turns whole sites into clean Markdown and structured data: fast onboarding, generous free tier, agent-friendly defaults. Diffbot is a decade-old AI plus computer-vision extraction service built around a Knowledge Graph of the public web. Same broad goal (turn pages into structured data), very different shape: Firecrawl is a self-serve crawl-and-Markdown product priced for developers; Diffbot is an enterprise extraction platform priced for organizations and analysts.
Key differences.
Cost, side by side.
| Pricing model | Firecrawl | Diffbot |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 1,000 credits / mo, no card | 10,000 credits / mo, no card |
| Entry | Hobby $19/mo (5,000 credits, or $16/mo annual) | Startup $299/mo (250,000 credits) |
| Mid | Standard $83-$99/mo (100,000 credits) | Plus $899/mo (1,000,000 credits) |
| Scale | Growth $333-$399/mo (500,000 credits); Scale $599-$799/mo (1,000,000 credits) | Enterprise (custom) |
| Model | Credit-based subscription; optional pay-as-you-go top-ups in $5 increments | Monthly subscription with renewable credit pools; overage billed pro rata per credit |
Firecrawl prices at the indie/developer end with a 1,000-credit free tier and a $19/mo entry point (or $16/mo billed annually). Diffbot's free tier is more generous at 10,000 credits/mo, but the first paid tier jumps to $299/mo. Different jobs, different price points; compare on the workload you actually run.
Feature by feature.
| Feature | Firecrawl | Diffbot |
|---|---|---|
| JavaScript rendering | Yes | Unknown |
| CAPTCHA solving | Unknown | Unknown |
| Geotargeting / proxies | Unknown | Partial |
| AI / LLM extraction | Yes (LLM-native) | Yes (computer-vision + NLP) |
| Knowledge Graph | No | Yes (public-web entities) |
| SERP API | Yes | Yes (own Knowledge Graph search) |
| Screenshots | Yes | Unknown |
| PDF output | Unknown | Unknown |
| Whole-site crawling | Yes (flagship) | Yes (Crawlbot) |
| Per-success billing | Yes | No (credits billed on call) |
| Self-serve sign-up | Yes (no card required) | Yes (no card required) |
| Pay-as-you-go top-ups | Yes ($5 increments) | No (overage per credit on paid plans) |
An honest look at each.
Firecrawl- $19/mo entry tier (or $16/mo annual) with a real free plan, sign up in seconds with no card
- SERP API included alongside crawl and extraction capabilities
- Screenshots supported out of the box
- LLM-native extraction with per-success billing so you only pay for what works
- Flexible top-ups in $5 increments alongside monthly plans
- Free tier is only 1,000 credits/mo, smaller than Diffbot's 10,000-credit free tier
- CAPTCHA solving and geotargeting capabilities are not confirmed in available documentation
- No Knowledge Graph or entity-linking capability
- Less proven on the largest-scale enterprise workloads
- Knowledge Graph of the public web with billions of entities
- 10,000 free credits per month with no card required, a substantial sandbox
- SERP API available alongside entity extraction
- Overage billing on paid plans means you can burst past your credit pool
- Decade-plus track record on enterprise extraction workloads
- Expensive entry point: $299/mo for the first paid tier
- JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA solving, screenshots, and PDF support are not confirmed in available documentation
- Per-call credit billing with no per-success option means you pay even for failed extractions
- Output is typed entities, not the Markdown most RAG stacks want
We do our best to keep this comparison accurate and up-to-date. If you notice any discrepancies, please let us know.
Our take: Firecrawl for the developer and RAG stack, Diffbot for the enterprise knowledge layer
If you are a developer or small team building a RAG pipeline, an agent, or an LLM-first ingest workflow, Firecrawl is the obvious starting point: a $19/mo entry price, SERP API, screenshots, per-success billing, and pay-as-you-go top-ups. If you need enterprise-grade entity extraction with a Knowledge Graph of the public web behind it, Diffbot is the heavier, pricier, more analytically-rich option, and its 10,000-credit free tier gives you a real sandbox before committing. They are optimised for different buyers; compare on your real workload rather than head-to-head feature lists.