A Firecrawl alternative that runs on your own accounts.
If you're outgrowing Firecrawl, here's why teams switch to Writ - and exactly how to move without losing what's working.
Firecrawl runs on their cloud. Writ runs on your accounts, and makes every workflow a REST API and an MCP tool.
A developer API that crawls a site and returns clean, LLM-ready markdown/JSON.
What sends people looking for a Firecrawl alternative
These are the reasons teams tell us they move. We name where Firecrawl is still the better tool further down - switching should be an honest decision.
- ✓You need to act on a site, not just read it: log in, fill forms, submit, or buy.
- ✓You need authenticated access on your own accounts.
- ✓You want a whole-site crawl (Harvest) that can crawl behind a login and lands in one persistent, deduped dataset you can query and expose as an API.
What Writ adds on top
The synthesis position: the four things that most often make the switch worth it.
Writ and Firecrawl, side by side
The structural differences: billing unit, where runs execute, auth, MCP, marketplace. Reviewed June 2026.
| Criterion | Writ | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Read AND act, including authenticated flows | Read public pages → markdown/JSON |
| Login + 2FA | Personas with built-in 2FA | Read-only, limited |
| Acts / transacts | Yes: click, fill, submit, buy | No |
| MCP-native | Read + action tools | Read tools |
| Whole-site crawl | Harvest: distributed across your fleet, can crawl behind a login, into one persistent, deduped dataset | Yes: clean markdown/JSON from public pages |
| Per-page AI cost | Build the extractor once, the fleet replays it at zero marginal AI cost | LLM billed per page (FIRE-1) |
Moving from Firecrawl, step by step
Start small, prove it, then port the rest. You never have to switch everything at once.
- 1
Pick one Firecrawl job to move
Start with a single workflow - the one that costs the most or breaks the most on Firecrawl. A small first move de-risks the switch.
- 2
Rebuild it once in Writ
Record the flow in the browser recorder, describe it to an AI session, or discover the site's own API - whichever fits. You get a real, replayable workflow.
- 3
Call it as an API and MCP tool
Publish the workflow to get a REST endpoint at /v1/{slug}/{path} and an MCP tool, authenticated with a wt_ key.
- 4
Run it your way and compare
Run it free on your own machine or on metered cloud, watch the success rate, then port the rest of your Firecrawl work at your own pace.
Keep what works. You can run Writ alongside Firecrawl. Use Firecrawl where it shines and add Writ for the parts it can't reach - sites with no API, authenticated in-browser actions, and any-site MCP tools. See the full comparison ▸
When Firecrawl is still the right call
Firecrawl is genuinely good at this.
- —Excellent at turning public pages into clean, LLM-ready text quickly.
- —A simple, developer-friendly API for read-only crawling.
Stay on Firecrawl if
- —You only need to read public pages and feed clean text to an LLM.
Switching from Firecrawl - questions
Is Writ a good Firecrawl alternative?
How do I migrate from Firecrawl to Writ?
What does Writ cost compared to Firecrawl?
Can Writ work on sites and accounts behind a login?
Do I have to give up Firecrawl entirely?
Try Writ as your Firecrawl alternative
Move one workflow first. Run it free on your own machine, see the success rate, then switch the rest at your own pace.