rasterly vs Firecrawl — a cheaper web-to-markdown API

Q: What does rasterly do that Firecrawl treats as a side feature?

Screenshots and PDF. rasterly treats format=png, format=jpeg and format=pdf as first-class outputs at the same flat per-render price, alongside read, crawl and extract. In Firecrawl a screenshot is a scrape action rather than the product's center of gravity.

Firecrawl is the deeper, more established platform — rasterly is the leaner, cheaper all-in-one. Firecrawl has been doing web-for-LLMs longer and ships more: an agentic crawler (FIRE-1), stealth mode, richer schema-based extraction, search and mapping. If you rely on that breadth, Firecrawl is the stronger tool and we won't pretend otherwise. rasterly does the core jobs — URL → clean Markdown (read), site → Markdown for RAG (crawl), URL → structured JSON (extract) — and adds screenshots and PDF as first-class outputs, from $0.90 per 1,000 renders. Same core, plus rendering, for less money. If you need Firecrawl's agent and extraction depth, stay on Firecrawl; if you want the common jobs done cheaply in one API, rasterly fits.

The real difference

	rasterly	Firecrawl
URL → clean Markdown (JS-rendered)	Yes — read	Yes — its core
Site crawl → Markdown for RAG	Yes — crawl	Yes
Structured extraction (JSON-LD / OG / tables)	Yes — extract	Yes, deeper & schema-based
Agentic crawler / smart navigation	No	Yes — FIRE-1
Stealth mode for hard sites	No	Yes
Screenshots & PDF as first-class formats	Yes — png / jpeg / pdf	As a scrape action
MCP server for agents	Yes — npx rasterly-mcp	Yes
SSRF protection out of the box	Enforced	Yes
Entry price	From $0.90 / 1,000	From ~$16 / mo

Honest line: Firecrawl's extraction and agent surface is broader and more battle-tested. If your pipeline needs the FIRE-1 agent, stealth crawling, or its richer schema extraction, rasterly does not match that today. rasterly wins on price and on being one API for read, crawl, extract and rendering — not on out-featuring a mature scraping platform.

Price, side by side

Firecrawl meters in credits (1 credit ≈ 1 page); rasterly meters per render. They're close enough to line up, but note Firecrawl adds credits for some options — enabling JSON output or enhanced/stealth modes multiplies the per-page cost, and agent runs are billed separately even on failures. Figures below are list prices; Firecrawl's paid tiers shown are billed yearly.

Tier	rasterly	Firecrawl
Free	100 renders / mo	1,000 credits / mo, 2 concurrent
Entry paid	$9 (Starter, 10k renders)	$16 (Hobby, 5k credits)
Mid	$29 (Growth, 50k)	$83 (Standard, 100k)
Scale	$99 (250k)	$333–$599 (Growth / Scale, 500k–1M)
Effective per 1,000	$0.58 (at 50k)	$0.60–$0.83 (before add-ons)

At high volume the raw per-page numbers converge. The gap widens once Firecrawl's add-ons kick in (JSON, enhanced and stealth modes each cost extra credits per page), and rasterly folds screenshots and PDF into the same flat render price rather than a separate line. If you need Firecrawl's depth, the extra cost buys real capability — just size it honestly.

Migrating the common case

The most common Firecrawl call — scrape a URL to Markdown — maps directly to rasterly's read. It's a JSON POST versus a single GET.

Firecrawl — scrape to markdown

curl -X POST "https://api.firecrawl.dev/v1/scrape" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer fc-YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://stripe.com","formats":["markdown"]}'

rasterly — read to markdown

curl "https://api.rasterly.dev/v1/read?url=https://stripe.com" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: sk_live_..."

Crawl is /v1/crawl?url= for RAG-ready Markdown; structured data is /v1/extract?url= (JSON-LD, OpenGraph, tables); a screenshot is /v1/screenshot?url= and PDF is format=pdf — all under one X-Api-Key. For agentic navigation or stealth crawling, that stays Firecrawl's job.

FAQ

Is rasterly a replacement for Firecrawl?

For the core jobs — turning a URL into clean Markdown, crawling a site for RAG, and extracting structured data — yes, and at a lower price. Firecrawl is the more mature platform with a bigger extraction and agent feature set, so if you lean on its FIRE-1 agent, stealth mode, or its deeper extraction tooling, Firecrawl is more capable. rasterly's edge is price, plus first-class screenshots and PDF in the same API.

Where is Firecrawl more capable than rasterly?

Firecrawl has been at this longer and ships more: an agentic crawler (FIRE-1), stealth mode for tougher sites, richer schema-based extraction, search, and site mapping. It's a broader, deeper scraping platform. rasterly deliberately does a smaller set of things and charges less for them.

What does rasterly do that Firecrawl treats as a side feature?

Screenshots and PDF. rasterly treats format=png, format=jpeg and format=pdf as first-class outputs at the same flat per-render price, alongside read, crawl and extract. In Firecrawl a screenshot is a scrape action rather than the product's center of gravity.

Do both ship an MCP server for AI agents?

Yes. Both publish an MCP server so agents can call them as tools. rasterly's runs with npx -y rasterly-mcp and is listed in the official MCP registry; the read, extract, crawl, screenshot and pdf endpoints are exposed as tools.

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Firecrawl pricing and features observed August 2026, shown for comparison only; check firecrawl.dev for current details. Firecrawl bills in credits and some options (JSON, enhanced/stealth modes, agent runs) consume extra credits, so the tables above are for rough orientation, not an exact per-page equivalence. rasterly is an independent product, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Firecrawl.