Firecrawl vs Jina Reader in 2026

Both calls on one key

A team does not have to pick one API and rewrite the other. Each call keeps its path, its body and its parser; the address and the key change.

# Firecrawl, before and after
curl -X POST https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $FIRECRAWL_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com/pricing"}'
curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/firecrawl/v2/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com/pricing"}'

# Jina Reader, before and after
curl -X POST https://r.jina.ai/ -H "Authorization: Bearer $JINA_API_KEY" -d "url=$URL"
curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/jina -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -d "url=$URL"

The address form works too: https://r.jina.ai/<url> becomes https://api.specstream.ai/jina/<url>. Each page read on either route is one Extract API page at $0.0008.

What stays the same

On /firecrawl, a scrape returns success: true, data.markdown with the main text of the page and data.metadata with sourceURL, url, statusCode, title and publishedTime when the page gives one. data.html and data.rawHtml are not returned. A search returns data.web[] with url, title, description and position. Every parameter is in the Firecrawl migration guide.

On /jina, the reply starts with Title: and URL Source:, then Markdown Content:, as Jina's does. With Accept: application/json it carries code, status and data with title, url, content and publishedTime; links, images and usage.tokens are not returned. Every parameter is in the Jina Reader migration guide.

One price a page, in dollars

Firecrawl sells credits by the month: Hobby is $19 for 5,000 and Standard $99 for 100,000, at 1 credit a page. Jina charges tokens by the length of each page, so a long page costs more than a short one. On SpecStream every page costs $0.0008, whatever its length, from a balance that never expires. A page with no text is not charged, and a busy call gets a 429 with Retry-After and charges nothing.

Scored on the official benchmarks

The Extract API that answers both routes scores 0.908 F1 on WCXB. The Search API on the same key scores a 97.9 F-score on all 1,000 official SimpleQA Verified questions, 978 of them correct, and 64.0 item F1 and 43.4 row F1 on all 200 official WideSearch tasks. Every score and its method is on the benchmarks page.

A search on /firecrawl/v2/search runs the fast search unless it asks for page text. On November 9, 2026 production took 1 to 20 fast searches a second and answered 718 of 720, with a median of 0.82 s at 1 a second and 1.07 s at 20 a second.

You decide what is kept, on each key

Create a key with zero_retention and a call made with it keeps no request text and no answer after the reply. spend_cap_cents is the most the key can spend.

curl -X POST https://api.specstream.ai/v1/account/keys \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SPECSTREAM_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "production", "scopes": ["account:read", "finds:spend"], "spend_cap_cents": 500000, "zero_retention": true}'

Search, pages and rows on one key

The same key reads up to 20 pages or documents a call with the Extract API at $0.80 per 1,000 pages, searches the live web at $5 per 1,000 searches, and runs Deep Search, which returns every match for a request in plain words as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row. Save a request and it reruns hourly to yearly, with each row labeled changed, unchanged or no longer matching.

SpecStream

The live web data engine for teams and agents. Pages at $0.80 per 1,000 through the Extract API or the Firecrawl, Jina, Crawl4AI, Tavily Extract and Exa Contents routes, search at $5 per 1,000, and every match as structured rows at 5¢, 15¢ or $1 a row.

Crawl4AI

An Apache 2.0 crawler you can host yourself, with a hosted API from $10 a month at 120 calls a minute. SpecStream answers a Crawl4AI server's /crawl and /md at https://api.specstream.ai/crawl4ai, with no server to run. Firecrawl vs Crawl4AI.

Tavily Extract

Every 5 successful URLs cost 1 credit on basic extract, at $0.008 a credit pay as you go. SpecStream answers POST /tavily/extract in Tavily's JSON, each page at $0.0008.

Exa Contents

$1 per 1,000 pages, per content type. SpecStream answers POST /exa/contents in Exa's JSON, up to 20 URLs a call, at $0.80 per 1,000 pages.