Firecrawl alternative · verified 2026-11
SearchPipe is a web search API and MCP server for developers building AI agents — every result ships with verifiable evidence. Firecrawl figures on this page were verified against firecrawl.dev in 2026-11.
TL;DRSearchPipe fast search costs $2.50 per 1,000 with page text included, on credits that never expire; Firecrawl search runs $1.98-$7.60 per 1,000 without page content, on plans that reset monthly. Pick Firecrawl to scrape and crawl, SearchPipe to search.
Free tier: 1,000 credits every month — no credit card required.
Recharged credits stay on your balance for good — no plan required. On Firecrawl, plan credits reset monthly (only Scale carries unused credits, for one month) and top-ups stay usable only while your plan is active.
Every result carries a verbatim supporting quote with character offsets, a source-authority tier and fetch facts. Firecrawl highlights are query-matched passages, not auditable support for a claim.
Extraction, LLM relevance scores and a cited answer come with every basic search. On Firecrawl, full-page content needs scrapeOptions on /search or a separate scrape call, and an LLM answer is not part of the search product.
The table below compares the two on the dimensions that decide a production integration: what a call returns, what the pipeline includes, what evidence comes attached, and what credits cost over time. Firecrawl figures are official-page data verified 2026-11; SearchPipe figures come from this site.
| Feature | SearchPipe | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | SearchPipe Agents that must cite what they answer | Firecrawl Scrape, crawl, map and parse websites into LLM-ready markdown |
| What one search call returns | SearchPipe Ranked results with verbatim quotes, scores and an optional cited answer | Firecrawl Ranked results with query-matched highlights; full-page content needs scrapeOptions |
| Full-text extraction | SearchPipe Included via include_raw_content | Firecrawl scrapeOptions on /search or POST /scrape, 1 credit per page |
| Evidence and verification | SearchPipe Span-level quotes, source authority tiers and POST /verify claim checks | Firecrawl Query-matched highlights; no claim verdicts or verification endpoint |
| Search price per 1k calls | SearchPipe $2.50 fast, $5 basic (default); $0.005 per credit | Firecrawl 2 credits per 10 results without page content ($7.60 per 1k on Hobby, $1.98 on Standard) |
| Advanced search per 1k | SearchPipe $10 (2 credits; bulk recharges from $0.0040 per credit) | Firecrawl No search-depth tiers; content depth is an add-on (1 credit per page) |
| Credits expiry | SearchPipe Recharges never expire; subscription credits valid 30 days | Firecrawl Plan credits reset monthly (one-month carryover on Scale); bought credits need an active plan |
| Free tier | SearchPipe 1,000 credits every month (2,000 fast or 1,000 basic searches), no card required | Firecrawl 1,000 credits per month (about 500 searches), no card required |
| Hosted MCP server | SearchPipe Yes; API key embedded in the URL, listed in the official MCP Registry | Firecrawl Yes; mcp.firecrawl.dev (keyless search, scrape and parse) |
| Switching from Firecrawl | SearchPipe Tavily-compatible search contract; scrape and crawl workflows need a different tool | Firecrawl Native |
The table claims evidence on every result. Here is the wire format: a single POST /v1/search returns ranked results, each carrying the quote that supports it, its position in the page and how authoritative the source is.
POST https://searchpipe.tech/v1/searchAuthorization: Bearer sp-YOUR_KEY {"query": "python check if a file exists", "max_results": 3, "include_answer": true} HTTP 200 — illustrative response, truncated to the first result { "query": "python check if a file exists", "answer": "Use os.path.exists: it returns True if path refers to an existing path or an open file descriptor [0].", "results": [ { "id": "907cc61fa0b9484d", "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.path.html", "content": "Return True if path refers to an existing path or an open file descriptor.", "score": 0.98, "evidence": { "quote": "Return True if path refers to an existing path or an open file descriptor.", "span_start": 0, "span_end": 74, "source_tier": "official" } } ], "usage": { "credits_charged": 1, "cached": false }}Illustrative response based on the public API contract — field values are examples, not live measurements.
1,000 free credits every month — no card required.
Start for freePrefer measured numbers? Head-to-head accuracy and latency live on the benchmarks page.
SearchPipe
Every result ships with the quote that supports it, the authority tier of the source and the fetch facts. POST /verify audits any claim against its cited page and returns a four-label verdict with the deciding quotes.
Firecrawl
Firecrawl is an open-source web data platform: scrape single pages, crawl whole sites, map link trees and parse documents into LLM-ready markdown. Its search endpoint rides on that infrastructure; deciding what a result actually supports is left to your pipeline.
An honest comparison cuts both ways:
Pick Firecrawl if your core job is ingesting websites — scraping pages, crawling domains and parsing documents into markdown — and search is a companion feature.
Pick SearchPipe if your agents must show their sources, or if flat prepaid pricing with extraction, relevance scores and a cited answer included in one call fits the way you buy.
Also comparing: SearchPipe vs TavilySearchPipe vs ExaSearchPipe vs Brave Search API
SearchPipe is a web search API and MCP server for developers building AI agents: one POST /search call runs multi-engine retrieval, full-text extraction, LLM reranking and an optional cited answer, and every result ships with verifiable evidence.
It depends on the plan and on whether you need page content. Without content, Firecrawl search costs 2 credits per 10 results: about $1.98 per 1,000 searches on Standard and $7.60 on Hobby, versus $2.50 per 1,000 fast searches on SearchPipe, which include page text. Full-page content on Firecrawl adds 1 credit per page, and a SearchPipe basic search at $5 adds LLM reranking and a cited answer. The cheaper Firecrawl rates require a paid subscription whose credits reset monthly; SearchPipe has no subscription requirement and recharged credits never expire.
Recharged credits never expire: they stay on your balance until used. Credits from monthly subscriptions are valid for 30 days from grant. Firecrawl plan credits reset monthly, and its bought credits stay usable only while your plan remains active.
For search calls, small. SearchPipe keeps the same core parameter names (query, max_results, search_depth, include_answer, include_raw_content) and a compatible response shape with url, title, content, score and answer fields. Scraping and crawling workflows have no SearchPipe equivalent and stay on your current tool.
Site-scale ingestion: /scrape, /crawl, /map and document parsing turn whole websites into LLM-ready markdown, plus an open-source runtime you can self-host. SearchPipe is a search API and does not crawl or scrape arbitrary sites on demand.
From the official Firecrawl pricing page and documentation, checked item by item in 2026-11. Pricing changes frequently: confirm on the official page before deciding. SearchPipe figures come from this site.
SearchPipe figures come from this site. Firecrawl figures were checked item by item against the official pages in 2026-11. Vendor pricing changes frequently — confirm on the official page before deciding.
1,000 free credits every month, no card required — run the same query through both APIs and compare the evidence yourself.
Bottom line: pick Firecrawl to scrape and crawl websites into markdown; pick SearchPipe for search-first workloads with evidence and credits that never expire.