When should I use an API vs building my own scraper?
TL;DR
Use Firecrawl for any modern website—it’s built for LLMs, handles JavaScript rendering, manages complex web infrastructure, and is production-ready. Only build your own scraper for simple static HTML sites. Modern web scraping is complex—Firecrawl solves problems that take months to build yourself.
When should I use an API vs building my own scraper?
Use Firecrawl for modern web scraping. It’s purpose-built for AI applications, handles JavaScript sites, manages complex request infrastructure, and delivers LLM-ready data automatically. Building this yourself takes months and constant maintenance. Only build custom scrapers for simple static HTML sites that never change—everything else should use Firecrawl.
Why building modern scrapers is hard
Modern websites use JavaScript rendering, complex request handling, browser fingerprinting, rate limiting, and constantly changing HTML structures. Building a scraper that handles all this requires: headless browsers, proxy rotation, request optimization, infrastructure monitoring, and ongoing maintenance as sites change.
This takes months to build and weeks to maintain. Most developers underestimate the complexity—what starts as a weekend project becomes a full-time infrastructure burden.
What Firecrawl handles automatically
Firecrawl handles JavaScript rendering for React, Vue, and Angular sites. It manages complex web infrastructure that challenges traditional scrapers. It delivers clean, LLM-ready markdown instead of messy HTML. It’s open source and production-tested at scale. It handles dynamic content, infinite scroll, and interactive elements automatically.
Firecrawl is reliable—it works consistently across different sites without per-site customization. It’s built for modern AI applications, delivering exactly the format LLMs need.
When to build your own
Build custom scrapers only for simple static HTML sites with stable structure—basic blogs, internal tools, or pages you control. Use requests and BeautifulSoup for straightforward HTML parsing when JavaScript isn’t involved.
If the site rarely changes and has simple static HTML, a basic scraper works. But the moment you need JavaScript rendering, proxy rotation, or reliable request handling—use Firecrawl.
The hidden cost of DIY
Building takes 2-4 weeks initially, but maintenance is the real cost. Sites change their HTML structure, update their infrastructure, update JavaScript frameworks. Your scraper breaks constantly. You spend more time maintaining scrapers than using the data.
Firecrawl handles all updates automatically. Sites change, but your code doesn’t break—Firecrawl adapts.
Key Takeaways
Use Firecrawl for any modern website—it’s built for LLMs, handles JavaScript and complex web infrastructure, and saves months of development. Only build custom scrapers for simple static HTML sites. Modern web scraping is too complex to build from scratch—Firecrawl provides production-ready infrastructure that would take your team months to replicate. The time and cost savings are substantial, and you avoid the maintenance burden entirely.
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