Crawl4AI alternatives in 2026
Finished rows from one request, at 5¢ to $1 a row.
Crawl4AI is an open-source library, free on your own hosting, with a hosted API sold in credits: $10 a month for 10,000, $99 for 125,000 and $499 for 750,000. A page costs 0.5 credits and a hard site 2. It works one URL at a time: /scrape returns Markdown and /extract returns JSON for the page you send, and your code finds the pages, joins the facts and keeps them up to date.
SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents, and the best alternative to Crawl4AI for a product or an agent that needs records. One request in plain words returns structured rows that meet every condition you wrote, with the facts from every site joined into one record. You see the most the job can cost before it runs, and you pay 5¢, 15¢ or $1 for each row delivered.
New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.
SpecStream and Crawl4AI side by side
| SpecStream | Crawl4AI | |
|---|---|---|
| What you send | The data you want in plain words, with the conditions every row must meet | A URL to /scrape or /extract, a query to /search or /serp, or many URLs at once to /scrape/batch and /scrape/jobs |
| What you get back | Structured rows, one record per company, place or filing, with facts from many sites joined. Source URL and read time on every value | One page at a time: /scrape returns a page as Markdown and /extract returns it as JSON. /serp returns Google's results page as data |
| The unit you pay for | A delivered row: 5¢, 15¢ or $1 by how much the row needs, plus 5¢ for an email and 15¢ for a phone. The same rate on every plan | A credit, worth $0.001. A page costs 0.5 credits, a search 1, a page from its archive 0.25, a real browser 1 and a hard site 2. Plans: Free with 1,000 credits a month, Starter at $10 for 10,000, Builder at $99 for 125,000 and Scale at $499 for 750,000 |
| What failed or empty work costs | Nothing. A row left out, a retry and a run that finds nothing are not charged | A request that fails on Crawl4AI's side is not charged. A page that returns costs its credits, 0.5 to 2, whether or not it holds the data you need |
| The cost cap before a run | The most the run can cost, quoted before it starts. Nothing runs until you approve it, and there are no automatic overages | A monthly pool of credits. Past it, extra credits cost $1 per 1,000 on Starter, $0.79 on Builder and $0.67 on Scale |
| Credit you do not use | What a run does not use goes back to your balance, and a top-up never expires | The month's credits are used first and do not carry over to the next month. Extra credits you buy never expire |
| How much one job does | One request runs until it reaches the count you asked for, up to four hours on the largest jobs | One call reads one page or one search. Free allows 10 calls a minute and 2 at a time, Starter 120 and 10, Builder 600 and 20, Scale 1,500 and 50 |
| Data already held | Public databases read every morning at specstream.ai/data: every company that filed a Form D since 2023 with its filing history, nearly 2 million US nonprofits, every US bank failure since 1934, federal rules, open federal contracts and grants, and local businesses. Signals such as funding rounds, new executives and layoffs at specstream.ai/signals. Ask for your own cut of any of them | Pages. One served from its archive costs 0.25 credits in place of 0.5 |
| A list you already have | Import a CSV, Excel file, Google Sheet or Airtable base of up to 20,000 rows. SpecStream fills in or checks each row and matches it to one identity, with any namesakes shown alongside their evidence. Import is free. A row that matches pays its rate, and a row that does not costs 5¢ | /scrape/batch and /scrape/jobs take many URLs at once and return each page |
| What you host | Nothing. The workspace, the API and the MCP server run on SpecStream | The open-source library is licensed under Apache 2.0 and free on your own hosting. The hosted API starts at $10 a month |
| MCP and API | MCP server, REST API, Python and TypeScript SDKs, a CLI and A2A. An agent can buy one request with no account, by card or in USDC | A REST API. One key works for /scrape, /extract, /search, /serp and /answer |
| Where the data goes | Google Sheets, Excel, Airtable, Notion, monday.com, HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Attio, Slack, Teams, Zapier, Make, n8n and signed webhooks | The API response. Its docs example reads the markdown field of the reply |
Why Crawl4AI users move to SpecStream
You describe the data, and SpecStream finds the pages
Crawl4AI's /scrape and /extract start from the URL you send, and your code turns the pages into records. On SpecStream the request is the whole job. It can be companies, places, filings, tenders or products: "AI developer tool companies founded since 2024 that publish a pricing page, with the starting price, the free plan and the docs URL", or "open school HVAC tenders in Texas, with the agency and due date". SpecStream reads the request back as parts you can edit, the conditions every row must meet and the facts to bring back, before anything runs. You write no scrapers, and you have none to fix when a site changes.
There is nothing to host
Crawl4AI's library is free, and its docs price self-hosting as "free (your hosting)": the servers and browsers are yours to run. SpecStream runs the search, the reading and the reruns. Your product sends a request to the API, your agent sends one to the MCP server at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp, and the rows come back.
You pay for rows, and dead ends cost nothing
Crawl4AI spends credits on each action: 0.5 for a page, 1 for a search, 1 for a real browser and 2 for a hard site. SpecStream bills the rows that meet your request: 5¢ for a row with up to 5 facts, 15¢ for up to 15 facts and one set of related records, and $1 for a deep row with no limit. At 5¢ a row, 200 companies cost $10, and the searches and pages behind them cost nothing. A company left out costs nothing, a retry costs nothing, and a run that finds nothing costs nothing.
The price is set before the run
On Crawl4AI the month's credits do not carry over, and past them extra credits cost $1 per 1,000 on Starter. On SpecStream every request gets a quote of the most it can cost, good for 30 minutes. Nothing runs until you approve it, the charge never goes past that amount, and whatever the run does not use goes back to your balance. Reading and pricing a request cost nothing.
The most accurate web search API in the world
SpecStream's Search API scores 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions (978 correct), and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. The Extract API scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. Scores and method are at specstream.ai/benchmarks. A search costs $5 per 1,000 with up to 10 results each. A page read costs $0.80 per 1,000, up to 20 pages or documents a call, and a page with no text is not charged.
Reruns label every row and land in your tools
Save the request and it reruns hourly to yearly. Each row comes back labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching. A changed or new row costs half its rate and an unchanged row costs 1¢, so rechecking 1,000 rows that did not change costs $10. New matches and changes land in Sheets, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Teams or a signed webhook with no code, or in your agent through the MCP server. Rows you already own are never charged again.
Other Crawl4AI alternatives
SpecStream
The live web data engine for teams and agents. One request in plain words returns structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a delivered row, under a maximum you approve before the run. The Search API costs $5 per 1,000 searches and the Extract API $0.80 per 1,000 pages. New accounts get $10 of credit, no card.
Firecrawl
Search, Scrape, Crawl and Agent endpoints billed in credits. The Free plan has 1,000 credits a month at 10 requests a minute, Standard costs $99 a month for 100,000 credits, Growth $399 for 500,000 and Scale $749 for 1,000,000. On SpecStream the pages read to find a row are not billed.
Apify
A platform for cloud programs called Actors, paid from a monthly usage amount. The Free plan includes $5 of usage a month, and Starter costs $19 a month with $19 of usage included. SpecStream has one rate card for every request, the same on every plan, and a top-up never expires.
ScrapeGraphAI
An extraction API sold in credits. The Free plan has 500 credits once at 10 requests a minute, Starter has 10,000 credits a month at 100 requests a minute, Growth 100,000 and Pro 750,000. SpecStream names the most a run can cost before it starts, and the charge never goes past it.
How SpecStream scores
The same numbers as the benchmarks page, from the official tasks and scorers.
| SpecStream |  Parallel |  Exa |  Tavily |  Perplexity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web researchWideSearch, GPT-5.6 Luna | 60.9 | 45.5 | 53.0 | 47.9 | 47.0 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Luna | 96 | 94 | 91 | 94 | 94 |
| Factual accuracySimpleQA Verified, GPT-5.6 Sol | 99 | 97 | 91 | 92 | 95 |
How to switch from Crawl4AI
Write the data you want in plain words, in place of the URLs and endpoints you call today. Sign up and you get $10 of credit, no card. At 5¢ a row, that is up to 200 rows.
Or send the request from code. This call spends nothing: the 402 reply shows how SpecStream read the request, the columns and the most it can cost.
curl -i https://api.specstream.ai/v1/agent/lists \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"request": "AI developer tool companies founded since 2024 that publish a pricing page, with the starting price, the free plan and the docs URL", "count": 25}'Approve that maximum by card through Stripe's Link agent wallet, or in USDC on Base, Arbitrum or Polygon, and you pay for the rows found. On an account, your agent uses the MCP server at https://api.specstream.ai/mcp and your team uses the workspace, from the same balance.
Frequently asked questions
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How much does Crawl4AI cost?
What is the best Crawl4AI alternative?
Is there a hosted alternative to running Crawl4AI yourself?
Does SpecStream have an API?
How accurate is SpecStream's search?
What does SpecStream cover?
/scrape and /extract return Markdown and JSON from the URLs you send, billed in credits.Does SpecStream have an MCP server?
https://api.specstream.ai/mcp over Streamable HTTP, with OAuth or an API key. Your agent sends the data it needs in plain words, sees the most the run can cost, and reads rows that meet every condition, inside the limits you set on its key.Sources
SpecStream wrote this page. Each rival figure comes from that company's own page.
- SpecStream pricingspecstream.ai/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
- SpecStream for agentsspecstream.ai/agents.md, read Nov 9, 2026
- SpecStream benchmarksspecstream.ai/benchmarks, read Nov 9, 2026
- SpecStream dataspecstream.ai/data, read Nov 9, 2026
- SpecStream signalsspecstream.ai/signals, read Nov 9, 2026
- Crawl4AI pricingcrawl4ai.com/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
- Crawl4AI docsdocs.crawl4ai.com/, read Nov 9, 2026
- Crawl4AI termscrawl4ai.com/terms, read Nov 9, 2026
- Crawl4AI licensegithub.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/blob/main/LICENSE, read Nov 9, 2026
- Firecrawl pricingfirecrawl.dev/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
- Apify pricingapify.com/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026
- ScrapeGraphAI pricingscrapegraphai.com/pricing, read Nov 9, 2026