Quick answer
Tavily - Tavily narrowly wins, with email support bundled in and no concurrency cap stated against Firecrawl's 2-request ceiling.
How the free tiers compare
Both free tiers give you 1,000 credits a month with no credit card required, but the credits measure different things. Firecrawl's credits pay for full-page scrapes, capped at 2 concurrent requests with low rate limits, and they do not roll over to the next month. Tavily's credits pay for search API calls and come with email support included. The headline numbers match, but Firecrawl's concurrency ceiling is the more visible constraint day to day.
Firecrawl vs Tavily free tier, side by side
| FirecrawlFTV 49 | TavilyFTV 54 | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly allowanceFirecrawl credits pay for full-page scrapes; Tavily credits pay for search API calls. | 1,000 free credits per month | 1,000 API credits per month |
| Concurrency | 2 concurrent requests | Not specified |
| Rate limits | Low rate limits on the free plan | Not specified |
| Credit rollover | Credits do not roll over to the next month | Not specified |
| Support | Not specified | Email support included |
| Credit card required | No | No |
After you outgrow the free tier
Firecrawl's Hobby plan is a flat $16 a month when billed yearly. Tavily's next plan is pay-as-you-go, billed at $0.008 per credit.
When to pick each one
Pick Firecrawl when…
- You need to scrape or crawl full pages, not just run search queries.
- 1,000 pages a month covers your workload.
- You want the credits to reset cleanly each month rather than accumulate.
Pick Tavily when…
- You need search results rather than full-page scraping.
- You want email support included on the free plan.
- You do not want to plan around a stated concurrency limit.
Bottom line
Choose Firecrawl if page scraping is the job and 1,000 pages a month is enough. Choose Tavily if you need search results with support included and no stated concurrency cap.
Read the full listings: Firecrawl and Tavily. Scores use the FTV methodology at /ftv. Browse more head-to-heads on /compare, or see the top-ranked free tiers on /top.