What is the key difference between Firecrawl and Nodebench?

Firecrawl belongs to the Search & Data Extraction category with cloud HTTP/SSE execution, while Nodebench belongs to the Search & Data Extraction category with local stdio execution.

How do I install Firecrawl or Nodebench in Claude Desktop or Cursor?

Copy the mcpServers JSON configuration snippet provided on this page into your claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json file and restart your AI client.

Are Firecrawl and Nodebench free or paid?

Firecrawl operates under a Free / Open Source model (No auth required). Nodebench operates under a Free / Open Source model (No auth required).

Which MCP server has more tools and community activity?

Firecrawl lists 3 tools with 0 views and 1 GitHub stars. Nodebench lists 0 tools with 0 views and 14 GitHub stars.

Can I use both Firecrawl and Nodebench together in the same MCP host?

Yes! MCP hosts like Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, and VS Code support configuring multiple servers under the mcpServers object simultaneously.

Side-by-Side Model Context Protocol Comparison

Firecrawl vs Nodebench

In-depth architectural comparison of the Firecrawl and Nodebench MCP servers. Compare execution transports, security boundaries, tool capabilities, quality scores, and ready-to-paste client installation snippets for Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and VS Code.

At a Glance & Executive Verdict

Firecrawl

Search & Data Extraction · Remote HTTP/SSE

Quality: 49/100 (Fair) | Auth: No auth required

Nodebench

Search & Data Extraction · Local stdio

Quality: 47/100 (Fair) | Auth: No auth required

Verdict Summary: Choose Firecrawl if you need specialized Search & Data Extraction tools running via a hosted cloud SSE transport. Choose Nodebench if your workspace requires Search & Data Extraction integration with local subprocess execution. Both servers can be configured concurrently in your client's mcpServers manifest.

Which MCP Server Should You Choose?

Choose Firecrawl when:

You need dedicated capabilities in the Search & Data Extraction domain.
You prefer remote streaming HTTP/SSE transport architecture.
Your security boundary fits: No auth required (Free / Open Source).
Primary tools included: scrape, map, search.

Explore Firecrawl Details

Choose Nodebench when:

You need dedicated capabilities in the Search & Data Extraction domain.
You prefer local stdio subprocess transport architecture.
Your security boundary fits: No auth required (Free / Open Source).

Explore Nodebench Details

Feature & Specification Comparison

Specification	F Firecrawl Search & Data Extraction	Nodebench Search & Data Extraction
Summary	Firecrawl MCP — wraps the Firecrawl API (firecrawl.dev) for web	260 MCP tools across 49 domains. AI Flywheel, quality gates, research, web scraping.
Category & Scope	Search & Data Extraction	Search & Data Extraction
Quality signal

Tools & Capabilities Breakdown

Firecrawl Tools (3)

scrape

Scrape a single URL using Firecrawl's JS-rendering engine and return clean markdown (up to 100,000 chars), page title, and description. Strips navigation/boilerplate by default (only_main_content=true). Supports output formats: markdown, html, rawHtml, links.

map

Crawl a website and return all discovered URLs (up to 5,000). Optionally filter by a search term to rank discovered links by relevance. Returns {url, count, links[]}.

Run a web search via Firecrawl and return ranked results with URL, title, and description snippet. Takes a query string and optional limit (default 5, max 20). Returns {query, results[{url, title, description}]}.

Nodebench Tools (0)

No explicit tool names declared in metadata yet. Check project README on main listing page.

Ready-to-Paste Client Configurations

Paste either (or both) of these JSON server blocks into your client config file (e.g. claude_desktop_config.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json).

Firecrawl Configuration

mcpServers (Claude Desktop / Cursor)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "url": "https://pipeworx.io"
    }
  }
}

Nodebench Configuration

mcpServers (Claude Desktop / Cursor)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nodebench": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "nodebench-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Frequently Asked Questions

Firecrawl is categorized under Search & Data Extraction and uses a remote streaming HTTP/SSE transport. In contrast, Nodebench belongs to Search & Data Extraction using local stdio subprocess. Select Firecrawl when you need capabilities focused on search & data extraction and Nodebench when you require tools for search & data extraction.

More alternatives to Firecrawl More alternatives to Nodebench Search & Data Extraction category hub