What is open source web scraping?

Open source scrapers let you inspect, modify, and self-host the code. Data never leaves your infrastructure.

Full source code published. Run on your servers, audit for security, modify to your needs. Complete control.

• Data sovereignty: Scraped data stays in your environment
• Customization: Modify logic and integrate with internal systems
• No vendor lock-in: Fork or switch anytime
• Cost control: No per-request pricing at scale

You manage infrastructure, updates, proxies, and scaling yourself.

Firecrawl is open source, and the self-hosted build includes the core scrape, crawl, map, and search routes. Screenshots, page actions, interact, and the Firecrawl Agent are cloud-only; the open source vs cloud comparison lists the differences.

If your reason for open source is a security or compliance review, Firecrawl Enterprise offers a different set of controls on managed infrastructure: SOC 2 Type II, zero data retention, a Data Processing Agreement, and SAML or OIDC SSO with SCIM. Data is still processed on Firecrawl's infrastructure, so these controls can satisfy a review's data-handling requirements but not a rule that data must stay on your own servers.

Open source scraping provides transparency, privacy, and control, at the cost of running the infrastructure yourself. Teams whose requirement is about how data is handled, rather than where it is processed, can often meet it with a managed provider that offers zero data retention and a signed DPA.