head to head · open source
Browser Use vs firecrawl-mcp-server
Browser Use has 119,977 GitHub stars, 13,371 forks, 421 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. firecrawl-mcp-server has 7,761 stars, 927 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Browser Use leads on adoption by 1,446% (119,977 vs 7,761 stars). Browser Use is written in Python under MIT; firecrawl-mcp-server is written in JavaScript under MIT. Browser Use has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, firecrawl-mcp-server 12%. firecrawl-mcp-server was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (mcp), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Browser Use | firecrawl-mcp-server | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 120K | ★ 7.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 927 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Browser Use if
- You weight community size — 120K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick firecrawl-mcp-server if
- You want the firecrawl-mcp-server feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and firecrawl-mcp-server fits your workflow better
About Browser Use
Navigate the web like a human does. Find an available slot, pick a date and time, handle the CAPTCHA, and book a driving test. Explore more demos and prompts ↗ Which Browser Use do I need? Path 1: Fully Hosted Cloud: Scale up with a fully hosted agent and browser. Path 2: CLI: Automate your own browser tasks. Path 3: Python Library: Run the open source Browser Use agent locally from your own code. Quickstart Path 1: Fully Hosted Cloud Scale browser automation with our hosted agent, stealth browsers, and infrastructure for profiles, recordings, and data policies. Get started with the API ↗ New Google, GitHub, or…
read the full Browser Use overview →
About firecrawl-mcp-server
Firecrawl MCP Server A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that brings Firecrawl to MCP compatible AI agents — search, scrape, and interact with the live web for clean, agent ready context. Big thanks to @vrknetha, @knacklabs for the initial implementation! Features Search the web and get full page content Search an index built for coding agents: GitHub issues, merged pull requests, READMEs, and docs Scrape any URL into clean, structured data Interact with pages — click, navigate, and operate Deep research with autonomous agent Automatic retries and rate limiting Cloud and self hosted support SSE support Play…
read the full firecrawl-mcp-server overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Browser Use or firecrawl-mcp-server more popular?
Browser Use has 119,977 GitHub stars and firecrawl-mcp-server has 7,761. Browser Use has the larger community by that measure.
Are Browser Use and firecrawl-mcp-server free?
Both are open source. Browser Use is licensed under MIT and firecrawl-mcp-server under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Browser Use and firecrawl-mcp-server?
Browser Use is written in Python and firecrawl-mcp-server in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Browser Use or firecrawl-mcp-server?
Choose Browser Use if you want the larger community (119,977 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose firecrawl-mcp-server if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.