The Best Firecrawl Alternative in 2026
Up to 97% cheaper, anti-bot bypass and CAPTCHA solving Firecrawl lacks.
Why developers leave Firecrawl
Real pain points from developers who switched to AlterLab
Monthly credits expire
Firecrawl credits reset monthly. Unused scrapes are lost, punishing variable workloads.
Limited scraping capabilities
Focused on crawling and markdown extraction. Lacks anti-bot bypass for protected sites.
No pay-as-you-go option
Must commit to a monthly plan. No way to just add credits when you need them.
Every feature, side by side
See exactly how AlterLab compares to Firecrawl across all key features
Same features, 97% less
Get the same capabilities at a fraction of the cost. Start with 5,000 free scrapes — no credit card required.
See How Much You Save
Drag the slider to calculate your exact savings vs Firecrawl
See AlterLab in action
One endpoint. Any website. Results in under 2 seconds. No Firecrawl complexity.
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Try it yourself with 5,000 free requests
No credit card required. Get your API key in 30 seconds.
Switch from Firecrawl in 10 minutes
Simple easy migration process. No downtime, no complex setup.
Migration Steps
Code Migration Example
// Firecrawl
const response = await fetch('https://api.firecrawl.dev/v0/scrape', {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'Authorization': 'Bearer YOUR_FIRECRAWL_KEY',
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
},
body: JSON.stringify({
url: 'https://example.com',
formats: ['markdown', 'html']
})
})// AlterLab
const response = await fetch('https://api.alterlab.io/v1/scrape', {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'X-API-Key': 'YOUR_ALTERLAB_KEY',
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
},
body: JSON.stringify({
url: 'https://example.com',
render_js: true
})
})Compatibility Notes
- •AlterLab supports markdown output via the formats parameter — include "markdown" in your formats array
- •Screenshot and metadata fields map directly
- •Firecrawl "formats" parameter not needed - AlterLab returns all by default
- •Use render_js: true for JavaScript-heavy sites
Ready to make the switch?
Start with 5,000 free requests. No credit card required.
Built for production workloads
Real platform metrics — not marketing promises
Start free — no credit card, no commitment
Frequently Asked Questions
More Comparisons
See how AlterLab stacks up against other scraping APIs
10x cost multipliers
75x cost for hard sites
Complex enterprise tooling
19,000+ Actors to manage
Monthly subscription required
Confusing token types
Enterprise complexity
Drop Firecrawl, keep your budget
5,000 free requests. No credit card. Migrate from Firecrawl in under 5 minutes.