mdkit vs Firecrawl
Firecrawl crawls and scrapes websites into LLM-ready data; mdkit converts uploaded documents into Markdown and JSON. Different jobs — compared.
| Firecrawl | A web crawling + scraping API that turns entire websites into LLM-ready markdown or structured data |
|---|---|
| mdkit | A file conversion API — no crawling; you upload documents, it returns Markdown/JSON |
Firecrawl is a crawling and scraping service: give it a site or URL and it crawls the pages (handling JavaScript rendering and anti-bot measures) and returns markdown or structured data for LLM use. It is offered as a credit-based hosted API with a free tier, alongside an open-source core.
mdkit solves the step after acquisition: converting documents — PDF, Office files, HTML — into clean Markdown and structured JSON. It never crawls; you control fetching entirely.
When Firecrawl fits
The hard part of your problem is ACQUISITION: many pages, JavaScript rendering, whole-site crawls. Firecrawl is built for exactly that, and its output is already markdown.
When mdkit fits
The hard part of your problem is the DOCUMENTS: the content arrives as PDFs, Word files or spreadsheets rather than public web pages. mdkit is a deliberately small hosted REST + MCP API for that conversion step — sync calls for small files, async jobs with signed webhooks for 50 MB batches, subscription pricing with a free tier. The two tools compose: crawl with whatever you like, convert attachments and documents with mdkit. Try it free.