Extracto vs Firecrawl
Firecrawl turns sites into LLM-ready markdown and crawls whole domains. Extracto returns typed, schema-validated JSON from one URL. Honest comparison.
How they differ
Firecrawl and Extracto are the closest match on this list, but they aim at different jobs. Firecrawl is an AI web-data API whose signature output is clean, LLM-ready markdown from a URL, with the nav, ads, and footers stripped out. It can scrape a single page, crawl every internal link across a domain, map all the URLs on a site, search, and interact. If your goal is to feed a RAG pipeline or crawl a whole documentation set, Firecrawl is built for exactly that.
Extracto is narrower on purpose. You send one URL plus a JSON schema, it runs the page through a real headless browser, and it returns typed JSON that has been validated against your schema, with missing fields as null instead of a guess. Every request includes a managed anti-bot bypass layer that handles protected sites such as Cloudflare, DataDome, and PerimeterX, with proxies and anti-bot handling taken care of for you and no setup. It works on any public HTTPS URL, including JavaScript-rendered and anti-bot-protected pages. Firecrawl does offer a structured-JSON mode, but that mode costs extra credits on top of the basic markdown price, so the real comparison is output shape and crawling scope, not whether either can reach the page.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Extracto | Firecrawl | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default output | Typed schema-validated JSON | LLM-ready markdown | Extracto gives structured fields by default; Firecrawl's default is clean markdown you then parse or embed. |
| Structured JSON extraction | Built in, always validated | Yes, extra credits | Both can return JSON, but Firecrawl's JSON/enhanced extraction multiplies the per-page credit cost over basic markdown. |
| Schema as a strict contract | Yes, output validated | Schema supported | Extracto validates every response against your schema before returning, so the shape is guaranteed or you get nulls. |
| Whole-site crawling | No, one URL per call | Yes (Crawl + Map) | Firecrawl follows internal links and lists site URLs; Extracto handles a single page per request and wins this for Firecrawl. |
| Proxies | Included (no setup) | Higher tiers | Extracto manages proxies for you with nothing to configure; Firecrawl offers stealth and proxy options on higher plans. |
| Anti-bot / CAPTCHA handling | Yes, managed | Stealth options | Extracto includes a managed anti-bot bypass layer that handles Cloudflare, DataDome, and PerimeterX; Firecrawl has stealth options on higher plans. |
| Login-gated pages | Enterprise only | Limited via Interact | Login-gated content (LinkedIn, X, Instagram) needs session cookies, available on Extracto Enterprise; neither tool is a general answer to authenticated scraping. |
| Null instead of guessed values | Yes, never guesses | Depends on prompt | Extracto returns null for fields it cannot find rather than fabricating a value, which keeps downstream data trustworthy. |
| Setup time | Minutes, no selectors | Minutes for markdown | Both avoid CSS selectors; Extracto's setup is just describing the fields you want as a JSON schema. |
| Free tier | 100 pages, no card | ~500 credits/month | Credits are not pages: Firecrawl's structured/enhanced modes spend several credits per page, so compare on your actual mode. |
Pricing
As of 2026, Extracto's free plan is 100 pages one time with no credit card, and paid is Hobby $14/month (5,000 pages), Standard $69/month (30,000 pages), or Growth $299/month (120,000 pages). AI extraction is included in every plan, with no separate $89/month add-on. Firecrawl's free plan is around 500 credits per month with paid from roughly $16/month. Firecrawl's headline price looks lower, but a credit is not a page: a scrape costs 1 credit while an AI extraction costs 5, so model your real mode before assuming it is cheaper. With Extracto you only pay when it works: failed requests and cache hits are free.
Pricing for Firecrawl reflects their public plans at the time of writing. Check their site for current numbers.
Migrating to Extracto
- 1
Translate your markdown step into a schema
Wherever your pipeline parsed Firecrawl markdown into fields, write those fields as a JSON schema instead. Extracto returns them directly, so you can delete the markdown-to-fields parsing code.
- 2
Swap the scrape call
Replace the Firecrawl scrape request with an Extracto request that sends the same URL plus your schema. Extracto handles proxies and anti-bot for you, so keep Firecrawl only for any Crawl or Map jobs, since Extracto handles one URL per call.
- 3
Drop your validation layer
Extracto validates output against your schema and returns null for missing fields, so you can remove the hand-written checks that confirmed Firecrawl JSON had the right shape and types.
- 4
Keep Firecrawl for crawls
Leave whole-domain crawling and site mapping on Firecrawl, since Extracto is not a crawler. Route single-URL extractions to Extracto, including anti-bot-protected pages, where its managed bypass and validation guarantee pay off.
When to choose which
Choose Firecrawl when you need to crawl an entire domain, map every URL on a site, or dump clean markdown into a RAG or search pipeline. Crawling whole sites and producing markdown-for-RAG are real capabilities Extracto does not have, since Extracto extracts from the single URL you give it rather than following links across a domain.
Choose Extracto when the job is "give me these specific fields from this URL as clean, typed JSON" and you want validation as a guarantee rather than an extra-cost mode. Extracto works on any public HTTPS URL, including JavaScript-rendered and anti-bot-protected pages, with proxies and a managed anti-bot bypass layer handled for you and no setup. If you are tired of parsing markdown into structured data and writing checks to confirm the shape, Extracto removes that step and returns typed, schema-validated JSON with no selectors.