head to head · open source
firecrawl-mcp-server vs pdf_oxide
firecrawl-mcp-server has 7,489 GitHub stars, 891 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped today. pdf_oxide has 1,037 stars, 130 forks, 322 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. firecrawl-mcp-server leads on adoption by 622% (7,489 vs 1,037 stars). firecrawl-mcp-server is written in JavaScript under MIT; pdf_oxide is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. firecrawl-mcp-server has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, pdf_oxide 13%. firecrawl-mcp-server was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| firecrawl-mcp-server | pdf_oxide | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.5K | ★ 1.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 891 | ⑂ 130 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick firecrawl-mcp-server if
- You weight community size — 7.5K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pdf_oxide if
- You want the pdf_oxide feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and pdf_oxide fits your workflow better
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 →
About pdf_oxide
PDFOxide is a Rust core PDF toolkit with bindings for nineteen additional languages, plus a command line tool and an MCP server, aimed at developers and data teams that need fast, permissively licensed text extraction, image extraction, markdown conversion, and PDF creation and editing.
read the full pdf_oxide overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is firecrawl-mcp-server or pdf_oxide more popular?
firecrawl-mcp-server has 7,489 GitHub stars and pdf_oxide has 1,037. firecrawl-mcp-server has the larger community by that measure.
Are firecrawl-mcp-server and pdf_oxide free?
Both are open source. firecrawl-mcp-server is licensed under MIT and pdf_oxide under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between firecrawl-mcp-server and pdf_oxide?
firecrawl-mcp-server is written in JavaScript and pdf_oxide in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, firecrawl-mcp-server or pdf_oxide?
Choose firecrawl-mcp-server if you want the larger community (7,489 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pdf_oxide if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.