Firecrawl is an open-source web data API: it scrapes pages to Markdown or structured JSON, crawls whole sites, maps their URLs, searches the web, parses PDFs and Word files, drives a managed browser for multi-step flows and monitors pages for changes. Readmint does a smaller job: it reads one page at a time as clean Markdown, previews links and maps a site's URLs. Here is how to choose. Firecrawl's features are as its home page described them on 31 October 2026.
At a glance
| Readmint | Firecrawl | |
|---|---|---|
| A page as Markdown | Yes | Yes |
| Pages built by JavaScript | Yes, in a real browser when needed | Yes |
| A site's URLs (map) | Yes, from sitemaps and page links | Yes |
| Crawl a whole site in one job | No: map, then read | Yes |
| Web search | No | Yes |
| PDFs and Word documents | No | Yes |
| Structured JSON from a schema | No | Yes |
| Browser actions (click, type) | No | Yes |
| Change monitoring | No | Yes |
| Link previews with image size and oEmbed | Yes | No dedicated operation |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes |
| Official SDKs | No: plain REST | Python, Node.js, Go, Rust |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes, open source |
| Price of a page | One credit, whether or not it needed the browser | See Firecrawl's pricing page |
Choose Firecrawl if
- You need to crawl whole sites in one job, search the web, or read PDFs and Word files.
- You want structured data from pages against a schema, or browser actions such as filling in a form.
- You want to self-host, or you prefer an official SDK.
Choose Readmint if
- You read pages one at a time, for an agent, a RAG pipeline or a summariser, and want the simplest possible pricing: one page, one credit, refused pages free.
- You also need link previews: title, description, image with its width and height, favicon and oEmbed details.
- You want a small API with three operations you can learn in five minutes.
Try it
The free plan includes 1,000 pages a month, no card needed. The API reference lists every field.