# Parallel vs. Firecrawl
In independent tests, Parallel scored higher than Firecrawl on multi-step research and adds deep research and entity discovery on one platform. Firecrawl is the stronger pick for crawling whole sites, driving a browser, or self-hosting.
## What does Parallel do?
Parallel is one developer platform covering search, extraction, research, entity discovery, and monitoring. On the agentic endpoints, every field comes back with a citation and a confidence score.
## Parallel vs. Firecrawl at a glance
Published list prices, documented capabilities, and independent benchmark scores as of October 14, 2026.
| Dimension | Parallel | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-turn company search F1 (Openbenchmarks, October 2026) | Leads.46.5 Basic, 44.2 Advanced (Leads) | 30.4 |
| Artificial Analysis Search Index (independent, September 2026) | 75 advanced, 73 basic | 73 |
| Company news accuracy (Openbenchmarks, October 2026) | 93.3% Basic, 86.0% Fast | Leads.95.3% (Leads) |
| Search list priceper 1,000 requests, per 1,000 requests | $1 Turbo or Fast, $5 Basic or Advanced | $1.50 to $7.60 by plan, billed monthly |
| Fetch known URLs | Leads.Extract: up to 20 URLs per call, $1 per 1,000 (Leads) | Scrape: one URL per call, or an async batch |
| Citations on research output | Leads.Per field: source, reasoning, confidence (Leads) | Run trace and page snapshots |
| Crawl, map, and browser actions | No crawl, map, or browser endpoints | Leads.Crawl, Map, and Interact endpoints (Leads) |
| Self-hosting | Hosted only | Leads.Open-source core (AGPL-3.0) (Leads) |
## Higher scores on multi-step research, in less time per task
Openbenchmarks, an independent hub that publishes its harness and every raw vendor response, holds one research agent fixed and swaps only the search API. On its multi-turn company search board, where the agent has to find every company matching three or four constraints, Parallel Basic scored 46.5 F1 from search results alone and Parallel Advanced 44.2, against 30.4 for Firecrawl. With page fetching allowed, Parallel Basic scored 42.3 against 33.2.
The independent Artificial Analysis Search Index scores the two closer. In its September 28, 2026 data, Parallel advanced scored 75, Parallel basic 73, and Firecrawl 73. On DeepSearchQA F1, Parallel scored 81 on advanced and 79 on basic against 74. On BrowseComp it scored 77 and 73 against 74. Firecrawl scored 73 on AA-Omniscience against 67 and 68.
Parallel also took less time per task. Artificial Analysis measured 25.6 seconds for Parallel basic and 40.7 for advanced, against 60.7 for Firecrawl. On Openbenchmarks’ company search a median task took 67.6 seconds with Parallel Basic against 75.0 with Firecrawl, though Parallel Advanced took 83.4.
Firecrawl scores higher on single-fact lookups. On Openbenchmarks’ company news board, 300 questions on recent company events, Firecrawl answered 95.3% correctly against 93.3% for Parallel Basic and 86.0% for Parallel Fast. It also returned each call in 510ms against 1.68s for Parallel Basic. Parallel Turbo took 348ms but answered 71.3% correctly.
On Openbenchmarks’ coding-agent board, 100 tickets against enterprise SaaS docs, the two tied at 76.0% with search and fetch, and Parallel Advanced scored 77.0%. With search alone, Firecrawl completed 70.3% against 66.7% for Parallel Fast. Parallel’s own September 2026 benchmark runs did not include Firecrawl, so every score on this page comes from these two independent evaluators.
Multi-turn company search F1, search only
Higher is better
Artificial Analysis Search Index (independent)
Higher is better
Time per task, Artificial Analysis
Lower is better
Company news accuracy
Higher is better
Latency per search call, company news
Lower is better
Company search row: Openbenchmarks board last updated October 2, 2026, a fixed GPT-5.6 Sol agent (medium reasoning) calling each search API, 45 locked questions, mean of 3 trials, search results only. Artificial Analysis rows: September 28, 2026 data, a GPT-5.6 Luna (medium) agent with web search and fetch tools over DeepSearchQA, a 200-question BrowseComp subset, and AA-Omniscience, with the search provider as the only variable. Time per task is derived model time plus measured search time. Company news rows: Openbenchmarks, measured October 2, 2026, 300 questions, up to 10 results per query, latency as mean wall time of the search request.
## Lower list price on fast searches, mixed cost per task
Firecrawl sells monthly credit plans. A search uses 2 credits per 10 results and a scraped page 1 credit, and plans run from $19 a month for 5,000 credits to $749 for 1,000,000. That puts 1,000 searches at $1.50 to $7.60 on monthly billing, or $1.20 to $6.40 billed yearly. Parallel bills per request with no plan, at $1 per 1,000 on Turbo or Fast and $5 on Basic or Advanced, with 10 results included.
Tier for tier, Parallel Turbo and Fast cost less than any Firecrawl plan rate. Parallel Basic and Advanced cost more than Firecrawl from the $99 Standard plan up, where 1,000 searches run $1.98 or less. Plain extraction is close. Parallel Extract is $1 per 1,000 URLs, and a Firecrawl scrape is $0.75 to $3.80 per 1,000 pages by plan.
Measured spend favors Firecrawl on several tasks. Artificial Analysis put total cost per 1,000 tasks, search plus model tokens, at $42.57 for Firecrawl against $59.22 for Parallel advanced and $66.79 for Parallel basic. On Openbenchmarks’ multi-turn board a median task cost $0.282 with Firecrawl against $1.120 with Parallel Basic, at a lower F1. On its company news board Parallel Fast cost $1.16 per 1,000 correct answers against $5.24.
Credits also shape the bill. Unused plan credits expire monthly except on annual Scale and Enterprise plans, and top-ups cost $2 to $10 per 1,000 searches depending on plan. Every Parallel processor has a fixed price, so the cost of a run is known before it starts.
Search, Turbo or Fast, per 1,000 requests
Lower is better
Search, Basic or Advanced, per 1,000 requests
Lower is better
Extraction, per 1,000 pages
Lower is better
Total cost per 1,000 Artificial Analysis tasks
Lower is better
Company news, per 1,000 correct answers
Lower is better
Firecrawl rows use its Standard plan, $99 a month for 100,000 credits on monthly billing, from the pricing effective September 4, 2026 and checked October 14, 2026. A search is 2 credits per 10 results and a basic scrape 1 credit per page. Artificial Analysis row: September 28, 2026 data, search list price plus candidate model tokens. Company news row: Openbenchmarks, measured October 2, 2026, list price divided by accuracy. Enterprise pricing differs on both platforms.
## How much does Firecrawl cost?
Firecrawl bills in credits from one shared balance. A search uses 2 credits per 10 results, and a basic scrape, crawl, or map uses 1 credit per page. Monthly plans run from $19 for 5,000 credits to $749 for 1,000,000, so 1,000 searches cost $1.50 to $7.60 on monthly billing. Every account gets 1,000 free credits a month, enough for 500 searches.
| Plan | Monthly price | Credits per month | Price per credit | Per 1,000 searches | Per 1,000 pages scraped |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 1,000 | n/a | Free up to 500 | Free up to 1,000 |
| Hobby | $19 | 5,000 | $0.0038 | $7.60 | $3.80 |
| Standard | $99 | 100,000 | $0.00099 | $1.98 | $0.99 |
| Growth | $399 | 500,000 | $0.000798 | $1.60 | $0.80 |
| Scale | $749 | 1,000,000 | $0.000749 | $1.50 | $0.75 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Monthly billing at Firecrawl’s listed plan prices, with 10 results per search. Yearly billing is 16.7% lower, or 20% on Scale.
Extras draw from the same balance. JSON extraction adds 4 credits per page, the /extract endpoint bills 1 credit per 15 tokens, Interact costs 2 credits per browser minute, and Agent is priced dynamically after 5 free runs a day. Paid plans top up in $5 increments, at $2 to $10 per 1,000 searches depending on plan. Unused plan credits expire monthly except on annual Scale and Enterprise plans.
Plans also set throughput. Search allows 10 requests a minute on Free and 100 on Hobby, rising to 5,000 on Growth and 10,000 on Scale, with 2 to 100 concurrent browsers.
Parallel charges per request, with no plans or credits. Search costs $1 per 1,000 requests on Turbo or Fast and $5 per 1,000 on Basic or Advanced, with 10 results included, and Extract costs $1 per 1,000 URLs. New accounts get up to $80 in credits at signup and $5 more each month.
For a wider field than these two, read Firecrawl alternatives.
Sources: firecrawl.dev/pricing, docs.firecrawl.dev/billing, docs.firecrawl.dev/rate-limits, parallel.ai/pricing, docs.parallel.ai/getting-started/pricing, checked October 14, 2026.
## Deep research with evidence on every field
Firecrawl Agent takes a prompt, searches and browses on its own, and returns JSON against an optional schema. It is in preview, with 5 free runs a day and dynamic credit pricing capped by a maxCredits budget that defaults to 2,500 credits. Parallel’s Task API runs the same kind of job on nine processors with fixed prices, from Lite at $5 per 1,000 runs to Ultra8x at $2,400, so the cost of a batch is known before it starts.
Every Parallel Task field comes back with a Research Basis: the source URLs, the supporting excerpts, the reasoning, and a calibrated confidence. A pipeline can send low-confidence values to review instead of trusting a whole result. Firecrawl exposes a run trace and snapshots of the pages a run produced, rather than citations attached to each output field.
Both platforms run scheduled monitors. Parallel adds FindAll, which builds verified lists of entities that match your criteria, and Entity Search for real-time people and company lookups. Firecrawl’s docs list no endpoint for building a verified entity list.
## Feature by feature
Pricing, capabilities, performance, integrations, and enterprise readiness, side by side.
### Search, scrape, and extract, endpoint by endpoint
Firecrawl /search maps to Parallel Search, and /scrape and /extract map to Parallel Extract. Parallel sends an objective with every call and returns focused excerpts. Firecrawl returns more output formats and can extract schema-shaped JSON in the same call, which Parallel leaves to its Task API.
| Feature | Parallel | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Search endpoint | POST /v1/search, four modes, $1 or $5 per 1,000 | POST /v2/search, one mode, 2 credits per 10 results |
| What a search returns | Ranked URLs with excerpts aligned to your objective | Titles, URLs, and query highlights by default |
| Full pages from a search | Larger excerpt budget, or an Extract call at $1 per 1,000 URLs | Leads.scrapeOptions in the same call, plus 1 credit per page (Leads) |
| Fetch known URLs | Leads.Extract, up to 20 URLs per synchronous request (Leads) | Scrape, one URL per call, or an async batch scrape job |
| Focus the extracted content | Objective and keyword queries select the excerpts | Query highlights on search, or a question format on scrape |
| Output formats | Markdown excerpts or full markdown | Leads.Markdown, HTML, links, screenshots, JSON, branding (Leads) |
| Schema-shaped JSON from a page | Task API, from $5 per 1,000 runs | Leads.JSON format on scrape, plus 4 credits per page (Leads) |
| Extract across a whole domain | Not offered, pass the URLs you want | Leads./extract with wildcards such as example.com/*, now succeeded by Agent (Leads) |
| Freshness control | Fetch policy can force a live crawl | maxAge sets how old a cached page may be |
### Pricing and total cost
Parallel bills per request at the tier you pick. Firecrawl draws every endpoint from one monthly credit balance, priced by plan. Scrape options and JSON extraction change how many credits a call uses.
| Feature | Parallel | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Searchper 1,000 requests, per 1,000 requests | $1 Turbo or Fast, $5 Basic or Advanced | $1.50 to $7.60 by plan, billed monthly |
| Results per search | 10 included, more at $1 per 1,000 results | 1 to 100, at 2 credits per 10 |
| Extractionper 1,000 pages, per 1,000 pages | $1, excerpts or full markdown | $0.75 to $3.80 by plan |
| Deep researchper 1,000 runs, per 1,000 runs | $5 to $2,400 across 9 fixed-price processors | Dynamic credits after 5 free runs a day |
| Pricing model | Pay per request, no plan or credits | Monthly credit plans from $19, with top-ups |
| Unused allowance | Leads.No allowance to expire (Leads) | Expires monthly except on annual Scale and Enterprise |
| Free tier | Leads.Up to $80 at signup, plus $5 every month (Leads) | 1,000 credits a month, about 500 searches |
### Core capabilities
Beyond search and extraction, Firecrawl adds site crawling, browser actions, and specialist indexes. Parallel adds per-field evidence, fixed-price deep research, and entity discovery.
| Feature | Parallel | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Search input | Leads.An objective plus up to five keyword queries (Leads) | One query string |
| Search modes | Turbo, Fast, Basic, Advanced | One mode, with optional page scraping |
| Search sources | Web, with images from a separate Image Search API | Leads.Web, news, and images in one call (Leads) |
| Specialist indexes | Not offered | Leads.Research, developer, and government indexes (Leads) |
| Site crawl and map | No crawl or map endpoint | Leads.Crawl and Map endpoints (Leads) |
| Browser actions | Not offered | Leads.Interact: click, fill forms, run code (Leads) |
| Deep research | Leads.Task API with input and output schemas (Leads) | Agent in preview, optional JSON Schema |
| Citations on research | Leads.Research Basis per field, with calibrated confidence (Leads) | Run trace and page snapshots |
| Monitoring | Monitor API with event stream and snapshot diffs | Page, site, or web search monitors with goal judging |
| Entity discovery | Leads.Entity Search for candidates, FindAll for verified sets (Leads) | No dedicated endpoint documented |
| Source controls | Domain include and exclude, freshness date, live fetch | Domain filters, time range, location, safe search |
### Performance and scale
Independent boards split by task. Parallel scores higher on multi-step research and takes less time per agent task. Firecrawl answers single-fact lookups more accurately, returns a single call sooner than Parallel Basic, and allows more search requests per minute on its larger plans.
| Feature | Parallel | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Artificial Analysis Search Index, September 2026 | 75 advanced, 73 basic | 73 |
| Artificial Analysis time per task | Leads.25.6s basic, 40.7s advanced (Leads) | 60.7s |
| Multi-turn company search F1, search only | Leads.46.5 Basic, 44.2 Advanced (Leads) | 30.4 |
| Company news accuracy | 93.3% Basic, 86.0% Fast | Leads.95.3% (Leads) |
| Coding-agent tickets, search and fetch | 77.0% Advanced, 76.0% Basic | 76.0% |
| Search latency, measured per call | 348ms Turbo, 942ms Fast, 1.68s Basic | 510ms |
| Search rate limit | 600 per minute | Leads.10 to 10,000 per minute by plan (Leads) |
| Research rate limit | Leads.2,000 Task runs per minute (Leads) | Agent: 2 to 2,000 per minute by plan |
### Integrations and ecosystem
Firecrawl has the broader developer footprint, with SDKs in more languages, an open-source core you can self-host, and integrations across agent frameworks and no-code tools. Both offer a hosted MCP server with keyless access and a CLI. Parallel adds an OpenAI-compatible Responses route.
| Feature | Parallel | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Official SDKs | Python and TypeScript | Leads.Python, Node, Go, Java, Ruby, Rust, .NET, PHP, Elixir (Leads) |
| Open source and self-hosting | Hosted only | Leads.Open-source core (AGPL-3.0), self-hostable (Leads) |
| Framework and no-code coverage | Vercel AI SDK, n8n, LangChain, LlamaIndex, and more | Leads.LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, Vercel AI SDK, n8n, Zapier, Make, Dify, and more (Leads) |
| MCP | Free keyless hosted Search MCP, plus Task MCP | Hosted MCP, keyless for search, scrape, and parse |
| CLI | Search, extraction, research, enrichment, and monitoring | CLI and agent skills for coding agents |
| OpenAI-compatible route | Leads.Responses API with streaming and follow-ups (Leads) | Not documented |
### Security, compliance, and support
Both hold SOC 2 Type II and offer zero data retention on enterprise plans. Parallel offers a HIPAA-ready plan, which Firecrawl does not document. Firecrawl adds PII redaction on every plan.
| Feature | Parallel | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| SOC 2 Type II | Yes | Yes |
| HIPAA | Leads.HIPAA-ready offering (Leads) | Not documented |
| Zero data retention | Enterprise | Enterprise, 10 credits per 10 results for end-to-end search |
| PII redaction | Not documented | Leads.On scrape and parse, 4 credits per page (Leads) |
| Data Processing Addendum | Yes | On paid plans from Standard up |
| Published SLA | Enterprise contract only | Enterprise contract only |
## Which one should you pick?
Parallel suits agents that answer questions, where multi-step accuracy, evidence, and per-request pricing decide. Firecrawl suits pipelines that ingest pages and whole sites, and teams that want to self-host.
### Pick Parallel when
- Your agent runs multi-step research and you want the higher independent scores on it.
- You want a flat per-request price with no monthly plan or expiring credits.
- You need a citation, reasoning, and a confidence score on every field of a research result.
- You want deep research, entity discovery, and monitoring from the provider that runs your search.
- You need a HIPAA-ready offering for regulated data.
### Pick Firecrawl when
- You need to crawl or map whole sites, or drive a browser through clicks and forms.
- You want to self-host an open-source core, or need an SDK beyond Python and TypeScript.
- Your agent mostly runs single-fact lookups, where Firecrawl scored higher on Openbenchmarks’ news board.
- You need more than 600 search requests per minute and run on a Growth or Scale plan.
- You want schema-shaped JSON from a page in the same call that scrapes it.
- You want news, image, research, or government results straight from the search call.
## Switching from Firecrawl
Firecrawl Search and Scrape map directly to Parallel Search and Extract. Crawl, Map, and Interact do not, so keep Firecrawl for those jobs and move the search path first.
- 01
Map the calls you already make
Firecrawl Search becomes Parallel Search, and Scrape becomes Extract, which takes up to 20 URLs per request. Extract jobs that return schema-shaped JSON move to the Task API, and Agent becomes Task or Responses. Turn the query string into an objective, and pass your tuned keywords alongside it.
- 02
Translate the parameters
Domain filters move into the source policy, and tbs time filters become a freshness date. Highlights map to excerpts, and scrapeOptions for full pages maps to Extract. Location and news sources have no direct parameter, and images move to the Image Search API.
- 03
Validate before you commit
New accounts earn up to $80 at signup plus $5 in credits every month, which covers a real evaluation on your own query mix before anything moves to production.
FAQ
Is Parallel better than Firecrawl?
For multi-step research, yes. On Openbenchmarks’ multi-turn company search, Parallel Basic scored 46.5 F1 against 30.4, and Artificial Analysis rates Parallel advanced 75 against Firecrawl’s 73. Firecrawl answered single-fact news lookups more accurately, and it is the stronger tool for crawling sites, browser automation, and self-hosting.
Parallel vs. Firecrawl: which is cheaper?
It depends on the tier and the task. Parallel Turbo and Fast cost $1 per 1,000 searches, below every Firecrawl plan rate of $1.50 to $7.60. Parallel Basic and Advanced cost $5, above Firecrawl from the $99 Standard plan up. Measured per task, Firecrawl often spent less, including $42.57 against $59.22 per 1,000 Artificial Analysis tasks.
How much does Firecrawl cost?
Firecrawl includes 1,000 free credits a month. Paid plans cost $19 a month for 5,000 credits, $99 for 100,000, $399 for 500,000, and $749 for 1,000,000, or 16.7% less billed yearly (20% on Scale). A search uses 2 credits per 10 results and a scraped page 1 credit, so 1,000 searches cost $1.50 to $7.60. Parallel Search costs $1 per 1,000 on Turbo or Fast and $5 on Basic or Advanced.
Can I migrate from Firecrawl to Parallel?
Yes, for search and extraction. Search maps to Search, Scrape to Extract, and schema-based Extract or Agent jobs to the Task API, with Python and TypeScript SDKs on both sides. Crawl, Map, and Interact have no Parallel equivalent, so keep Firecrawl for site ingestion and browser work and move the search path.
Is Firecrawl faster than Parallel?
Per call, sometimes. On Openbenchmarks’ company news board Firecrawl returned results in 510ms against 1.68s for Parallel Basic, while Parallel Turbo took 348ms. Per task, Parallel took less time: 25.6 seconds for Parallel basic against 60.7 for Firecrawl in Artificial Analysis’s September 2026 data, and 67.6 against 75.0 seconds on Openbenchmarks’ company search.
Where does Firecrawl still win?
Firecrawl crawls and maps whole sites, drives a browser through Interact, and has an open-source core you can self-host. It ships SDKs in nine languages, wide framework coverage, and up to 10,000 search requests a minute on Scale. It answered single-fact news lookups more accurately on Openbenchmarks, and its measured cost per task was lower on several boards.
How current is this comparison?
Parallel reviewed Firecrawl’s docs and pricing on October 14, 2026, this page’s last update. Artificial Analysis figures come from its September 28 data, and Openbenchmarks figures from its company search and news boards of October 2 and its coding-agent board of September 26. Parallel’s own benchmark runs do not include Firecrawl. Both platforms ship often, so check the linked sources.
FAQ
For multi-step research, yes. On Openbenchmarks’ multi-turn company search, Parallel Basic scored 46.5 F1 against 30.4, and Artificial Analysis rates Parallel advanced 75 against Firecrawl’s 73. Firecrawl answered single-fact news lookups more accurately, and it is the stronger tool for crawling sites, browser automation, and self-hosting.
It depends on the tier and the task. Parallel Turbo and Fast cost $1 per 1,000 searches, below every Firecrawl plan rate of $1.50 to $7.60. Parallel Basic and Advanced cost $5, above Firecrawl from the $99 Standard plan up. Measured per task, Firecrawl often spent less, including $42.57 against $59.22 per 1,000 Artificial Analysis tasks.
Firecrawl includes 1,000 free credits a month. Paid plans cost $19 a month for 5,000 credits, $99 for 100,000, $399 for 500,000, and $749 for 1,000,000, or 16.7% less billed yearly (20% on Scale). A search uses 2 credits per 10 results and a scraped page 1 credit, so 1,000 searches cost $1.50 to $7.60. Parallel Search costs $1 per 1,000 on Turbo or Fast and $5 on Basic or Advanced.
Yes, for search and extraction. Search maps to Search, Scrape to Extract, and schema-based Extract or Agent jobs to the Task API, with Python and TypeScript SDKs on both sides. Crawl, Map, and Interact have no Parallel equivalent, so keep Firecrawl for site ingestion and browser work and move the search path.
Per call, sometimes. On Openbenchmarks’ company news board Firecrawl returned results in 510ms against 1.68s for Parallel Basic, while Parallel Turbo took 348ms. Per task, Parallel took less time: 25.6 seconds for Parallel basic against 60.7 for Firecrawl in Artificial Analysis’s September 2026 data, and 67.6 against 75.0 seconds on Openbenchmarks’ company search.
Firecrawl crawls and maps whole sites, drives a browser through Interact, and has an open-source core you can self-host. It ships SDKs in nine languages, wide framework coverage, and up to 10,000 search requests a minute on Scale. It answered single-fact news lookups more accurately on Openbenchmarks, and its measured cost per task was lower on several boards.
Parallel reviewed Firecrawl’s docs and pricing on October 14, 2026, this page’s last update. Artificial Analysis figures come from its September 28 data, and Openbenchmarks figures from its company search and news boards of October 2 and its coding-agent board of September 26. Parallel’s own benchmark runs do not include Firecrawl. Both platforms ship often, so check the linked sources.
