head to head · open source
firecrawl vs playwright
firecrawl has 182,337 GitHub stars, 9,856 forks, 621 open issues and last shipped today. playwright has 96,380 stars, 6,469 forks, 185 open issues and last shipped today. firecrawl leads on adoption by 89% (182,337 vs 96,380 stars). firecrawl is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; playwright is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. firecrawl has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, playwright 7%. firecrawl 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 | playwright | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 182K | ★ 96K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 6.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick firecrawl if
- You weight community size — 182K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick playwright if
- You want the playwright feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and playwright fits your workflow better
About firecrawl
Firecrawl is an open source web context API that enables AI agents to search, scrape, and interact with websites at scale. It lives in the AI and data extraction ecosystem, providing structured, LLM ready outputs from unstructured web content. Built in TypeScript and licensed under AGPL 3.0, it supports both self hosting and a hosted service via firecrawl.dev.
read the full firecrawl overview →
About playwright
Playwright is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed TypeScript framework for web testing and browser automation that drives Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit through a single API, built for end to end testers, browser automation script writers, and AI coding agents.
read the full playwright overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is firecrawl or playwright more popular?
firecrawl has 182,337 GitHub stars and playwright has 96,380. firecrawl has the larger community by that measure.
Are firecrawl and playwright free?
Both are open source. firecrawl is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and playwright under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between firecrawl and playwright?
firecrawl is written in TypeScript and playwright in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, firecrawl or playwright?
Choose firecrawl if you want the larger community (182,337 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose playwright if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.