Quercle vs Firecrawl: Web Scraping APIs for AI Agents Compared

TL;DR

Overview

Quercle is purpose-built for AI agents - every fetch processes content through an LLM with your prompt, and search returns synthesized answers. Firecrawl is a developer-focused web scraper that returns raw content in various formats. To get LLM-processed output from Firecrawl comparable to Quercle, you need a JSON extraction workaround (shown below).

Key Differences

1. Content Processing

Quercle processes every fetch through an LLM:

{
  "url": "https://example.com/pricing",
  "prompt": "Extract the pricing tiers as a comparison table"
}
// Returns: Formatted markdown table, ready to use

Firecrawl returns raw markdown by default. To get prompt-based extraction comparable to Quercle, you need a JSON extraction workaround:

{
  "url": "https://example.com/pricing",
  "formats": [{
    "type": "json",
    "prompt": "Extract the pricing tiers as a comparison table",
    "schema": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "result": {
          "type": "string",
          "description": "The extracted answer based on the provided prompt in markdown format"
        }
      }
    }
  }]
}
// Returns: JSON with result field containing the extracted content
// Costs 5 credits ($0.0317) vs Quercle's 1 credit ($0.001)

This workaround uses the schema description to guide the LLM to return markdown-formatted content in the result field. However, results are sometimes returned as JSON wrapped in markdown code fences (e.g., ```json {...} ```) rather than clean markdown, which is generally better for LLM consumption.

2. Search Capabilities

Quercle returns LLM-synthesized answers with citations:

{ "query": "How to implement OAuth2?" }
// Returns: Complete answer with source links

Firecrawl returns only URLs:

{ "query": "How to implement OAuth2?" }
// Returns: List of URLs, no synthesis

3. Security

Quercle includes prompt injection detection, adding a security layer when processing untrusted content.

Firecrawl doesn't analyze content for security threats. Malicious instructions in source pages pass through to your agent.

4. Developer Experience

Firecrawl offers more flexibility:

• Multiple output formats (markdown, HTML, JSON)
• Crawling capabilities (follow links)
• Screenshots
• Custom extraction schemas

Quercle is simpler:

• One output format (processed markdown)
• Fetch and search with security built-in
• No crawling or screenshots

When to Use Quercle

• AI agents that need to browse safely
• Autonomous systems processing untrusted content
• LLM tool calls requiring ready-to-use content
• Applications where security is non-negotiable

When to Use Firecrawl

• Crawling entire sites - Firecrawl's crawl and map endpoints handle multi-page scraping
• Structured extraction - Extract data with strict JSON schemas
• Multiple output formats - Get markdown, HTML, screenshots, or structured JSON
• Site mapping - Discover all URLs on a website before processing

Pricing Comparison (smallest plan)

For comparable prompt-based extraction, Firecrawl requires the JSON extraction workaround shown above, which costs 5 credits.

The Bottom Line

Choose Quercle if security matters and you need LLM-processed content. For AI agents browsing untrusted sites, prompt injection detection adds a critical security layer.

Choose Firecrawl if you need crawling, site mapping, multiple output formats, or structured JSON extraction.

Both can fetch web content - the choice depends on your security needs and whether you need crawling or structured extraction capabilities.