The short answer
Firecrawl's single-page scrape is a different integration from an Apify Actor run. Choose Apify when a specific Actor solves the collection job; choose a document API when a uniform URL-to-document interface is the requirement.
| Provider | A good reason to choose it | Important caveat |
|---|---|---|
| Apify | A recurring or site-specific collection job that benefits from an existing Actor or a custom hosted scraper. | Apify is a platform, not one universal page-extraction schema. Actor fees, compute, proxy use and output quality must be checked for the particular Actor. |
| Firecrawl | An agent or retrieval pipeline that wants main-content documents without building a separate HTML-to-Markdown stage. | Basic page credits do not establish the cost of every extraction mode, browser action or other product. A crawl job and a single-page scrape have different completion semantics. |
Side-by-side differences
| Requirement | Apify | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Primary workflow | Hosted Actor runs and datasets | Single-page scrape plus separate crawl/batch APIs |
| Returned content | Actor-defined records or files | Markdown, HTML and optional structured formats |
| Rendering/control | Actor implementation determines browser behavior | Scrape settings and actions; dedicated browser products also exist |
| Job model | Run creation, status and dataset retrieval | Synchronous scrape; asynchronous crawl/batch |
| Integration boundary | Pin Actor identity, version and input schema | Document-oriented formats |
| Cost driver | Actor charges, compute, storage and proxy usage | Credits and selected extraction features |
Pricing: make the units comparable
| Provider | Billing model | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Apify | Platform usage plus Actor-specific pricing | Plans include platform spend; individual Actors can use compute, per-result or other pricing. Do not infer total job cost from the platform's compute-unit rate alone. |
| Firecrawl | Credit plans with feature-specific consumption | The pricing page distinguishes scraped pages and search credits. Compare the exact scrape options and billing interval; do not use an annually billed monthly equivalent as a monthly commitment. |
For 1,000 accepted pages, record attempted URLs, render mode, retries and schema failures. A low HTML-request price can require separate parsing; an extraction credit can include work that another vendor bills separately. Do not rank cost until the output passes the same acceptance check.
For a buying decision, calculate total spend divided by accepted outputs at your expected volume. Keep free evaluation access, paid production access, annual commitments and overages separate. We have not measured a cost or speed winner for this pair.
What changes in the integration?
| Apify | Firecrawl | |
|---|---|---|
| Method and URL | POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/{actorId}/runs | POST https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape |
| Authentication | Bearer API token | Authorization: Bearer token |
| Inputs | Actor-specific JSON input, authenticated with a token | JSON url, formats and optional scrape settings |
| Output | Run metadata; retrieve finished output from the run's dataset or use an appropriate synchronous endpoint. | success and data containing requested document formats and metadata. |
Apify: migration check
Pin an Actor and its schema/version in the adapter. Wait for terminal run status, then validate dataset items; the run-creation response is not the scraped data.
Firecrawl: migration check
Preserve final URL and extraction metadata. Revalidate Markdown structure and missing fields; an HTML fetch adapter is not automatically a drop-in document parser.
How to test them fairly
- Build an authorized test set spanning static HTML, JavaScript-rendered pages, tables and long articles. Save expected fields and the permitted access conditions.
- Use the same URLs, country, device settings and freshness window. Keep cache hits separate from fresh fetches.
- Mark challenge pages, empty main content and invalid structured fields as failures even if the HTTP status is 200.
- Measure time to a usable document or completed dataset, not only time to job creation. Include polling, retries and client-side parsing.
- Report total billed credits, browser time, proxy charges and actor fees per accepted document. Respect site terms, privacy, robots guidance and access controls; do not test bypassing protected accounts.
Record the plan, request settings, time window and acceptance rules with every run. That makes a later result interpretable when a vendor changes a model, source set or pricing tier.
Prefer a common request format?
POST /api/v1/web-scraping/extractReview the request contract and tell us the coverage you need. Access requires enablement; this endpoint does not execute or bill requests yet.
View endpoint and request accessSources and review dates
Documentation reviewed October 28, 2026. These are integration and plan comparisons, not measured speed or accuracy rankings. Availability, licensing and prices should be confirmed for the chosen plan.
Corrections: email faizank@docsalot.dev with an official source.