head to head · open source
EasySpider vs firecrawl-mcp-server
EasySpider has 44,571 GitHub stars, 5,385 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. firecrawl-mcp-server has 7,489 stars, 891 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped today. EasySpider leads on adoption by 495% (44,571 vs 7,489 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; firecrawl-mcp-server is written in JavaScript under MIT. EasySpider has attracted 12% 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 2 topic tags (batch-processing, data-collection), 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.
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Side by side
| EasySpider | firecrawl-mcp-server | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 7.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 891 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick EasySpider if
- You weight community size — 45K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- 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 EasySpider
EasySpider is a visual, code free web crawler and browser automation tool distributed on GitHub under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is written in JavaScript as a graphical application and lives in the web scraping and data extraction ecosystem, sitting alongside browser automation testing tools. It also carries the alias ServiceWrapper, described as an intelligent service encapsulation system for web applications. Development spans roughly six years, with the latest push recorded in September 2026.
read the full EasySpider overview →
About firecrawl-mcp-server
Firecrawl MCP Server is the official Model Context Protocol server that gives Cursor, Claude, and other MCP compatible AI clients search, scraping, and page interaction against the live web.
read the full firecrawl-mcp-server overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is EasySpider or firecrawl-mcp-server more popular?
EasySpider has 44,571 GitHub stars and firecrawl-mcp-server has 7,489. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and firecrawl-mcp-server free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and firecrawl-mcp-server under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and firecrawl-mcp-server?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript 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, EasySpider or firecrawl-mcp-server?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,571 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose firecrawl-mcp-server if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.