# Crawl4AI alternative for AI agents: Clawifi vs Crawl4AI

> What each product's own pages say, side by side. Crawl4AI facts were read on 2026-10-23 from Crawl4AI's own pricing and docs pages; follow each link to check.

Canonical page: https://clawifi.dev/compare/crawl4ai

## What Crawl4AI's pages say

| Topic | Fact | Source (read 2026-10-23) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| licence / self-host | The docs describe Crawl4AI as a crawler that can run as a Python library or as a self-hosted server at no charge. | [docs.crawl4ai.com/](https://docs.crawl4ai.com/) |
| licence / self-host | The project is licensed under Apache License 2.0, and the README asks users to include an attribution. | [raw.githubusercontent.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/main/README.md](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/main/README.md) |
| free tier | The hosted Crawl4AI Cloud includes 1,000 free credits per month, at 10 requests a minute and 2 concurrent. | [docs.crawl4ai.com/](https://docs.crawl4ai.com/) |
| paid plans | Paid cloud plans start at $10 a month with 120 requests a minute and 10 concurrent. | [docs.crawl4ai.com/](https://docs.crawl4ai.com/) |
| capabilities | The cloud exposes /scrape (Markdown), /extract (JSON), /search, /serp and /answer endpoints. | [docs.crawl4ai.com/](https://docs.crawl4ai.com/) |
| capabilities | The library supports deep crawling with several traversal strategies, including BFS and DFS, with crash recovery. | [raw.githubusercontent.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/main/README.md](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/main/README.md) |
| capabilities | Extraction can use CSS/XPath schemas without an LLM or LLM-based extraction into a JSON schema. | [docs.crawl4ai.com/](https://docs.crawl4ai.com/) |
| MCP server | A hosted MCP endpoint is at api.crawl4ai.com/mcp, and the self-hosted server also exposes MCP. | [raw.githubusercontent.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/main/README.md](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/main/README.md) |
| SDKs | The library is installed from PyPI with pip. | [raw.githubusercontent.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/main/README.md](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unclecode/crawl4ai/main/README.md) |

## What Clawifi's pages say

| Topic | Fact | Source |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free plan | $0 with 1,000 credits a month. | [clawifi.dev/pricing](https://clawifi.dev/pricing) |
| Paid plans | Starter $19 a month (10,000 credits), Pro $99 a month (125,000 credits), Scale $299 a month (500,000 credits), billed monthly, USD excluding taxes. | [clawifi.dev/pricing](https://clawifi.dev/pricing) |
| Credit cost | Most calls cost 1 credit; a browser render 3; cache hits and failures on Clawifi’s side cost 0, while a page whose site answers with an error is charged as usual. | [clawifi.dev/docs/pricing-and-credits](https://clawifi.dev/docs/pricing-and-credits) |
| MCP | A local MCP server (`clawifi-mcp`) and a hosted one at `https://api.clawifi.dev/mcp` with 14 tools; 4 of them work without a key, 50 calls a day per address. | [clawifi.dev/docs/remote-mcp](https://clawifi.dev/docs/remote-mcp) |
| SDK | Python (`pip install clawifi`), plus a CLI and plain HTTP. | [clawifi.dev/sdk](https://clawifi.dev/sdk) |

Prices and limits change; the linked pages are the authority. Something out of date? [Tell us](mailto:clawifisupport@rearclabs.com?subject=Compare%20page)

## Questions

### Is Clawifi an alternative to Crawl4AI for AI agents?

For some jobs. The tables on this page put what Crawl4AI's own pages say (read 2026-10-23) about licence / self-host, free tier, paid plans, capabilities, MCP server and SDKs beside what Clawifi's pages say. Clawifi searches many engines as one, reads pages and PDFs, and returns the passages that answer a question, with sources, over MCP, a Python SDK and plain HTTP. Which fits depends on what your agent needs to do.

### Does Crawl4AI have a free tier, and does Clawifi?

According to Crawl4AI's own pages (read 2026-10-23): The hosted Crawl4AI Cloud includes 1,000 free credits per month, at 10 requests a minute and 2 concurrent. Clawifi's Free plan is $0 with 1,000 credits a month, and 4 tools on the hosted MCP server work without a key, 50 calls a day per address.

### Can I use Crawl4AI and Clawifi from an MCP client?

According to Crawl4AI's own pages (read 2026-10-23): A hosted MCP endpoint is at api.crawl4ai.com/mcp, and the self-hosted server also exposes MCP. Clawifi has a local MCP server (`clawifi-mcp`) and a hosted one at `https://api.clawifi.dev/mcp` with 14 tools; see [Remote MCP](https://clawifi.dev/docs/remote-mcp).

### How do Crawl4AI and Clawifi charge?

According to Crawl4AI's own pages (read 2026-10-23): Paid cloud plans start at $10 a month with 120 requests a minute and 10 concurrent. Clawifi's paid plans are Starter at $19 a month, Pro at $99 a month, Scale at $299 a month; most calls cost 1 credit and a browser render 3; cache hits and failures on Clawifi’s side cost 0, while a page whose site answers with an error is charged as usual. See [Pricing](https://clawifi.dev/pricing).

## Other comparisons

- [Clawifi vs Spider](https://clawifi.dev/compare/spider): Sourced, dated facts.
- [Clawifi vs Brave Search API](https://clawifi.dev/compare/brave-search-api): Sourced, dated facts.
- [Clawifi vs Firecrawl](https://clawifi.dev/compare/firecrawl): Sourced, dated facts.
- [All comparisons](https://clawifi.dev/compare): The compare hub.