Firecrawl

license

AGPL-3.0(OSI, self-host core)

source

public

managed-cloud

firecrawl.dev with 'additional features' beyond OSS = open-core split

core features withheld

yes — Fire-engine is closed and its source is in no public repo - the tree ships only a client at apps/api/src/scraper/scrapeURL/engines/fire-engine and .env.example calls FIRE_ENGINE_BETA_URL the fire engine closed beta. Screenshots and page actions are unavailable in the self-hosted stack because both require Fire-engine

Firecrawl's AGPL-3.0 core is open, but Fire-engine, its own scraping engine, is not available in any public repository. The source tree includes only a client that connects to a separately provided endpoint, and the self-hosting guide says that screenshots, page actions, agents, browser features and specialty formats require either Fire-engine or Firecrawl Cloud. In other words, part of the product itself is withheld from the published source. That is what makes Firecrawl open core; the managed cloud's additional features would not be enough on their own.

• https://api.github.com/repos/firecrawl/firecrawl recorded 2026-08-12

  Repo metadata: license spdx_id AGPL-3.0, default branch main, 165,882 stars, not archived. One license across the tree - the carve-out is not a directory under other terms but an engine that is absent from it.

• https://api.github.com/repos/firecrawl/firecrawl/contents/apps/api/src/scraper/scrapeURL/engines/fire-engine recorded 2026-08-12

  The whole of Fire-engine in the public repo: branding-script, brandingScript.ts, checkStatus.ts, delete.ts, index.ts, scrape.ts. A request/poll/delete client against a remote base URL. The engine it calls is not in this repository or any other public one.

• https://docs.firecrawl.dev/contributing/self-host recorded 2026-09-28

  Not available in the default stack. Fetch and Playwright both report no support; both require Fire-engine.

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/firecrawl/firecrawl/main/apps/api/.env.example recorded 2026-09-28

  # set if you'd like to use the fire engine closed beta

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/firecrawl/firecrawl/main/apps/api/src/scraper/scrapeURL/engines/fire-engine/scrape.ts recorded 2026-09-28

  config.FIRE_ENGINE_BETA_URL ?? "<mock-fire-engine-url>";

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/firecrawl/firecrawl/main/LICENSE recorded 2026-09-28

  GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/firecrawl/firecrawl/main/README.md recorded 2026-09-28

  Firecrawl is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license. The cloud version at [firecrawl.dev](https://firecrawl.dev) includes additional features:

• https://www.firecrawl.dev/pricing recorded 2026-09-28

  Hobby: $19/month billed monthly, or $16/month billed annually

Firecrawl's usage is measured by GitHub stars because neither the repository nor the pricing page publishes a download, request or customer count for its paid API, which sells credits instead. A star is not a use, so real usage is almost certainly greater than the count alone can show for a tool this widely integrated into agent scraping workflows, including LangChain.

• https://github.com/mendableai/firecrawl recorded 2026-08-13

  Repo page, 166,863 stargazers, AGPL-3.0. No download count, request count or customer count published.

Firecrawl's search endpoint finds and returns content in a single call: its own documentation describes it as searching and optionally scraping the results. It does not compose an answer from what it returns, so retrieval stops at handing back the raw content.

• https://docs.firecrawl.dev/api-reference/endpoint/search recorded 2026-09-17

  The Firecrawl Search endpoint: "Search and optionally scrape search results", `POST https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/search` with query, limit, sources, categories and domain filters. The same reference lists Scrape, Batch Scrape, Crawl, Map and Interact endpoints.