Browser Use and Firecrawl are two popular browser automation platforms that solve different problems. Still, they have a lot of overlapping functionality, from data extraction to website interaction.
In this comparison, we'll cover each platform's best use cases, compare pricing, and benchmark them for scraping and browser automation. We'll also explain how you can leverage both tools in one workflow.
TL;DR
Choose Browser Use for AI-powered browser automation and stealth browser infrastructure. Choose Firecrawl for data extraction pipelines, including scraping and crawling. You can also combine both tools in one workflow.
| Compare | Browser Use | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Main use | Browser automation with AI + affordable stealth browsers | Structured web data extraction and crawling |
| Other use cases | Research, scraping, form filling, UI testing | Search, monitoring, browser interaction |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Credit-based subscription plans |
| Free tier | One-time $1 credit for eligible signups | 1,000 free credits each month |
| Browser automation | Task-driven agents | Interact endpoint or Browser Sandbox |
| Scraping | Yes (agents can return structured records) | Yes (dedicated data endpoints) |
| Browser automation timings | 33.23 s (20.5% lower response time) | 41.78 s |
| Scraping timings | 20.65 s | 7.25 s (2.85x faster) |
| License (core) | MIT | AGPL v3 |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA support (Enterprise), DPA, zero data retention (Enterprise) | SOC 2 Type II, DPA (Standard+), SSO and zero data retention (Enterprise) |
∗ Prices and capabilities were checked, and benchmarks run, on October 13, 2026.
∗ Timings are medians of five attempts per tool on one procurement form and one catalog page, using the configurations below.
What is Browser Use?
Browser Use is a platform for AI-powered browser automation and stealth browser infrastructure. Its open-source library gives you the agent code to run and customize yourself. The hosted platform provides two products:
- Browser Use Agents: run browser tasks from natural-language instructions.
- Browser Use Infrastructure: provides managed stealth browser infrastructure.
Browser Use supports persistent login sessions and cookies, plus stealth browsers with fingerprint protections, residential proxies, and automatic CAPTCHA solving. On top of that, it supports structured JSON extraction using a schema.
What is Firecrawl?
Firecrawl is an open-source web scraping platform that lets developers collect web content and extract structured data. It supports JSON and LLM-ready Markdown and provides several API endpoints:
/searchfinds relevant web pages and optionally retrieves their content./scrapeextracts a page as Markdown, HTML, or structured JSON./interactclicks, fills forms, and navigates using prompts or code./crawldiscovers and scrapes pages across a website./monitorchecks pages, sites, or search results on a schedule and reports changes./agentsearches and navigates the web to collect data from a prompt.
Additionally, Firecrawl offers Browser Sandbox for standalone browser sessions when you want to interact with a website without scraping it first.
Comparison
Let's compare the two services across a few key areas.
Use Cases
Browser Use and Firecrawl solve two different layers of the web automation stack. Browser Use primarily handles browser automation and browser infrastructure, while Firecrawl handles data acquisition and extraction.
Common use cases for Browser Use include form filling, website navigation, account management, CRM automation, and data entry. It's also used for testing, research, and other repetitive browser tasks.
Firecrawl, on the other hand, is primarily used for web scraping and crawling, often to support research, price monitoring, lead generation, and other workflows that need structured web data.
Pricing
Browser Use uses pay-as-you-go pricing with no subscription. You pay for browser time and traffic. Hosted agents also charge for model usage, with a 20% orchestration fee added to the model cost.
The minimum top-up is $5, and credits never expire. Eligible new users get $1 in free credits.
| Component | Rate |
|---|---|
| Browser time | $0.02/hour, rounded up to whole minutes |
| Managed proxy traffic | $5/GB |
| Your own proxy traffic | $0.20/GB |
| Hosted agent model usage | Model cost + 20% orchestration fee |
Firecrawl uses credit-based pricing, with 1,000 free credits each month and paid subscriptions for higher usage. Monthly plans cost $19 for 5,000 credits (Hobby), $99 for 100,000 (Standard), $399 for 500,000 (Growth), and $749 for 1 million (Scale).
Each operation costs a specific number of credits, for example:
| Operation | Credits |
|---|---|
| Basic page scrape | 1/page |
| JSON page scrape | 5/page |
| Code-only Interact session | 2/browser minute |
| Interact session using prompts | 7/browser minute |
Interact has a one-minute minimum, and the initial scrape is billed separately. Stop the session when you're done to avoid extra charges.
Because the platforms have different pricing models, it is difficult to determine which one is more affordable. Before committing, I suggest you run your workflow on each one and consider the task success rate.
Authentication & Sessions
Both tools cover the basics: saved browser profiles let you reuse login state across tasks.
Browser Use offers a more convenient setup if you're already logged in locally: you can sync that login to the cloud. Its agent sessions also preserve the conversation and reuse the live browser for follow-up tasks.
Firecrawl supports persistent profiles through Scrape and Interact, but requires a few explicit steps: attach a profile, log in through Interact, and stop the session to save it.
Performance
I ran a quick benchmark on two tasks: browser automation, which Browser Use is built for, and data extraction, which Firecrawl specializes in. Each experiment included five attempts per tool, with results checked independently.
Browser Automation
I asked both tools to complete a three-step procurement form: select a book, enter the request details, and save a draft. Browser Use Agents and Firecrawl's prompt-driven Interact received the same instructions, and I checked that each attempt saved exactly one correct database record.
| Result across five attempts | Browser Use | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Successful attempts | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| Median response time | 33.23 seconds | 41.78 seconds |
| Total cost | $0.02733 | $0.152 (estimation) |
Both tools completed every attempt correctly, but Browser Use's median response time was 20.5% lower. Browser Use used the GPT-6 Luna model. Firecrawl used its managed Interact agent; the underlying model was not exposed in my test.
Data Extraction
I asked both tools to extract the first ten books from Books to Scrape, including each book's title, price, availability, and product URL. Browser Use Agents and Firecrawl's JSON scrape received the same instructions and schema, and I checked all 40 fields against the page's HTML.
| Result across five attempts | Browser Use | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Fully correct outputs | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| Median response time | 20.65 seconds | 7.25 seconds |
| Total cost | $0.02454 | $0.095 (estimation) |
Firecrawl extracted the data about 2.85 times faster, while Browser Use's recorded usage cost was lower in both experiments if we calculate Firecrawl's pricing using the Hobby tier. These small tests cover one form and one catalog page; your results will depend on the workflow and configuration.
License
Browser Use's core library uses the permissive MIT license, while Firecrawl's core uses AGPL v3, which has stronger source-sharing requirements.
Both can be self-hosted, but you'll need to manage the infrastructure and external services. Firecrawl's self-hosted version also lacks some Cloud capabilities, including its hosted scraping engine.
For enterprise readiness:
- Both vendors publish SOC 2 Type II assurances.
- Browser Use provides a DPA, with HIPAA support, zero data retention, and custom SLAs available through enterprise agreements.
- Firecrawl provides a DPA on Standard and higher plans, with custom agreements, SSO, SCIM, and zero data retention on Enterprise.
Combining Browser Use and Firecrawl
You can also use both tools in the same workflow. For example, let's say you want to collect products from several supplier websites and add a selected item to your internal procurement system.
Firecrawl could crawl the catalogs and extract product details, such as names, prices, and source URLs. Your application would check the data, select an item, and pass its details and the requested quantity to Browser Use. Browser Use would then fill out the procurement form using a saved login.
The tools don't need to share a browser session; your application can simply pass the data between them.
Conclusion
Choose Browser Use for browser infrastructure and multi-step browser tasks, such as filling forms, updating records, and working in logged-in accounts. Firecrawl is a better fit for scraping and crawling websites into structured data. If your workflow needs both, you can use Firecrawl to collect the data and Browser Use to act on it.
Curious how Browser Use compares to Browserbase? Check out our Browser Use vs Browserbase article.
