Firecrawl MCP

Firecrawl MCP

Data
Firecrawl (Mendable)
claudecursorvscodewindsurfgeneric
FreeOpen SourceAPI

About This Server

Firecrawl's official MCP server. Gives agents powerful web scraping capabilities: JS rendering, full-site crawling, search and structured data extraction with clean Markdown output.

Installation

env FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=<key> npx -y firecrawl-mcp
Official README installation guide

Hosted MCP (keyless free tier)

Connect to the remote hosted server with no setup:

text
https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp

On the keyless free tier, scrape, search, and interact work without an API key (rate-limited). Other tools such as crawl, map, agent, and extract still need a key.

Prefer an API key or OAuth whenever the human can sign up. It unlocks the full tool set and higher limits. With a key, use:

text
https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/{FIRECRAWL_API_KEY}/v2/mcp

See the MCP server docs and the agent onboarding guide for setup details.

Search-only endpoint

A read-only, search-only surface is also hosted at:

text
https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp-search

It exposes a fixed set of six read-only tools: firecrawl_search and the five firecrawl_research_* tools. It performs no page-content fetching and has its own OAuth identity; the full endpoint above is unchanged. See docs/search-profile.md for the full contract.

Running with npx

bash
env FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-YOUR_API_KEY npx -y firecrawl-mcp

Manual Installation

bash
npm install -g firecrawl-mcp

Running on Cursor

Configuring Cursor 🖥️

Note: Requires Cursor version 0.45.6+

For the most up-to-date configuration instructions, please refer to the official Cursor documentation on configuring MCP servers:

Cursor MCP Server Configuration Guide

To configure Firecrawl MCP in Cursor v0.48.6

1. Open Cursor Settings

2. Go to Features > MCP Servers

3. Click "+ Add new global MCP server"

4. Enter the following code:

json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR-API-KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

To configure Firecrawl MCP in Cursor v0.45.6

1. Open Cursor Settings

2. Go to Features > MCP Servers

3. Click "+ Add New MCP Server"

4. Enter the following:

- Name: "firecrawl-mcp" (or your preferred name)

- Type: "command"

- Command: env FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your-api-key npx -y firecrawl-mcp

> If you are using Windows and are running into issues, try cmd /c "set FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=your-api-key && npx -y firecrawl-mcp"

Replace your-api-key with your Firecrawl API key. If you don't have one yet, you can create an account and get it from https://www.firecrawl.dev/app/api-keys

After adding, refresh the MCP server list to see the new tools. The Composer Agent will automatically use Firecrawl MCP when appropriate, but you can explicitly request it by describing your web scraping needs. Access the Composer via Command+L (Mac), select "Agent" next to the submit button, and enter your query.

Running on Windsurf

Add this to your ./codeium/windsurf/model_config.json:

json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mcp-server-firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "YOUR_API_KEY"
      }
    }
  }
}

Running with Streamable HTTP Local Mode

To run the server using Streamable HTTP locally instead of the default stdio transport:

bash
env HTTP_STREAMABLE_SERVER=true FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-YOUR_API_KEY npx -y firecrawl-mcp

Use the url: http://localhost:3000/mcp

Installing via Smithery (Legacy)

To install Firecrawl for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

bash
npx -y @smithery/cli install @mendableai/mcp-server-firecrawl --client claude

Running on VS Code

For one-click installation, click one of the install buttons below...

![Install with NPX in VS Code](https://insiders.vscode.dev/redirect/mcp/install?name=firecrawl&inputs=%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22promptString%22%2C%22id%22%3A%22apiKey%22%2C%22description%22%3A%22Firecrawl%20API%20Key%22%2C%22password%22%3Atrue%7D%5D&config=%7B%22command%22%3A%22npx%22%2C%22args%22%3A%5B%22-y%22%2C%22firecrawl-mcp%22%5D%2C%22env%22%3A%7B%22FIRECRAWL_API_KEY%22%3A%22%24%7Binput%3AapiKey%7D%22%7D%7D) ![Install with NPX in VS Code Insiders](https://insiders.vscode.dev/redirect/mcp/install?name=firecrawl&inputs=%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22promptString%22%2C%22id%22%3A%22apiKey%22%2C%22description%22%3A%22Firecrawl%20API%20Key%22%2C%22password%22%3Atrue%7D%5D&config=%7B%22command%22%3A%22npx%22%2C%22args%22%3A%5B%22-y%22%2C%22firecrawl-mcp%22%5D%2C%22env%22%3A%7B%22FIRECRAWL_API_KEY%22%3A%22%24%7Binput%3AapiKey%7D%22%7D%7D&quality=insiders)

For manual installation, add the following JSON block to your User Settings (JSON) file in VS Code. You can do this by pressing Ctrl + Shift + P and typing Preferences: Open User Settings (JSON).

json
{
  "mcp": {
    "inputs": [
      {
        "type": "promptString",
        "id": "apiKey",
        "description": "Firecrawl API Key",
        "password": true
      }
    ],
    "servers": {
      "firecrawl": {
        "command": "npx",
        "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
        "env": {
          "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "${input:apiKey}"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Optionally, you can add it to a file called .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace. This will allow you to share the configuration with others:

json
{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "type": "promptString",
      "id": "apiKey",
      "description": "Firecrawl API Key",
      "password": true
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "firecrawl-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "${input:apiKey}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Firecrawl MCP different from ordinary web scraping?

It is built for LLMs: scraped pages come back as clean Markdown, with support for JS-rendered pages, full-site crawling, search and structured extraction. The AI gets citation-ready content instead of raw HTML.

How do I install Firecrawl MCP?

Sign up at firecrawl.dev for an API key, then run env FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=<key> npx -y firecrawl-mcp in your MCP configuration. Cursor, Claude Code, Windsurf and VS Code are all supported.

Does Firecrawl cost money?

The MCP server itself is open source and free, but scraping runs through the Firecrawl cloud API: the free plan includes a one-time 500-credit allowance, enough for light use. Heavy crawling requires a paid credit plan, or you can self-host the open-source version.