Native fingerprints from AdsPower
Cloud Browser runs AdsPower fingerprint browsers with real native browser fingerprints, bringing AdsPower’s browser technology directly to your cloud workflows.
Markdown, structured data & browser interaction
AdsCrawl vs Firecrawl
Both offer web content APIs and browser control. The choice is about how you assemble the workflow: explicit browser tasks and named fields, or integrated URL discovery, crawling and model-based extraction.
Published by AdsCrawl · Official documentation reviewed
A documentation-based feature comparison; not a performance benchmark.
Powered by AdsPower
Why choose AdsCrawl Cloud Browser
Use AdsPower fingerprint browsers as saved cloud environments for recurring tasks, with an API to create, start and stop each profile.
An isolated environment for every profile
Give each task or account its own browser environment, with separate fingerprint settings and browser state. Save and reuse profiles for recurring work.
Browser updates that follow AdsPower
Cloud Browser follows AdsPower fingerprint browser version updates, bringing ongoing browser-engine and fingerprint improvements to your cloud environments.
Choose for the workflow
When to consider AdsCrawl
- You want AdsPower fingerprint browsers in Cloud Browser, with native fingerprints, isolated profiles and updates that follow AdsPower. API-key starts require your proxy; runtime requires a paid plan.
- You have Playwright or Puppeteer scripts and want an explicit create, connect and release lifecycle for temporary CDP sessions.
- You already orchestrate your URL queue and want rendered content, named DOM/network fields or PNG from dedicated HTTP endpoints.
When to consider Firecrawl
- You want URL discovery, site crawling, batches of known URLs or web search as managed API operations.
- You want model-based extraction guided by a JSON schema or prompt, alongside Markdown and other page formats.
- Your workflow starts by scraping a page and then continues interacting with that browser through Interact.
These recommendations follow the documented capabilities below; they do not imply the other provider cannot perform the same task.
Side by side
Capabilities, lifecycle & billing
Each row links to official references. Proxy and session behavior is scoped to the named product; check the current contract before integrating.
Scroll the table sideways to compare both providers →
| Dimension | AdsCrawl | Firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Markdown & HTML | POST /html returns rendered HTML, Readability article Markdown or article JSON. Markdown is returned as text and depends on readable article content being present. | Scrape returns requested formats in JSON, including Markdown, cleaned HTML or rawHtml. Content-selection options control whether navigation and other surrounding content are included. |
| Discovery & multi-page jobs | The published task endpoints process specified pages. Your application supplies URLs and manages traversal, queues and aggregation for a multi-page workflow. | Map discovers URLs; Crawl follows site links and extracts pages; Batch Scrape processes a supplied list. Search finds web results and can scrape their content. |
| Structured fields | POST /spa-extract uses named DOM/network fields or a published template. Article JSON from /html is a separate output, not arbitrary schema-based extraction. | Scrape JSON mode uses a model with a schema and/or prompt to extract fields from a page. The Agent API handles broader discovery and multi-page extraction tasks. |
| Actions & browser control | SPA extraction supports documented page actions. For custom scripts, connect Playwright or Puppeteer to a temporary Remote CDP session. | Scrape supports pre-extraction actions. Interact continues work on a scraped page and exposes CDP. Browser Sandbox also creates standalone sessions for API/SDK workflows. |
| Saved state | Cloud Browser profiles survive runtime stop and can be started again. Temporary Remote CDP sessions have a separate lifecycle. | A named profile can persist browser state across sessions. saveChanges controls write-back on close; the next run creates a new session with that profile. Only one session can write to a profile at a time. |
| Proxy configuration | Cloud Browser runtime requires a paid plan and an explicit valid proxy on each API-key start. Browser tasks and temporary CDP also provide managed routing. | Scrape uses managed proxies and accepts location.country. If a requested country is unavailable, routing may fall back to a nearby region. The deprecated proxy option controls strategy, not a custom proxy URL. |
| Screenshots | POST /screenshot returns PNG bytes synchronously. Choose fullPage or the first matching CSS element; selector takes precedence. | Scrape’s screenshot format returns an image URL in the response, with options such as fullPage and viewport. Save the image if you need to retain it beyond the URL’s expiration. |
| Billing units | Compare plan credits, browser concurrency, saved profiles and API-key limits. Explicitly stop Cloud Browser runtime when finished to end its running charges. | Scrape/Crawl consume page credits; discovery/search use their own endpoint meters, and Interact bills browser minutes. JSON extraction and other options can add credits; Agent usage is dynamic. Compare the full workflow. |
Evaluate a complete data workflow
Define how URLs enter the pipeline
Start with a representative site and a clear page limit. Decide whether you already have URLs or need discovery. Check deduplication, pagination, job completion and partial failures before comparing the returned content.
Validate the content your application uses
Compare headings, links, tables and missing sections in Markdown. For JSON, check required fields, types and absent values against known examples. Article JSON, named extracted fields and schema-guided output need different parsing logic.
Include interaction and cleanup
Exercise a page that needs a click or login, using your selected browser API. Verify state after ending and restarting a session, then account for retries, browser time and enabled options rather than only counting URLs.
Common questions
Can Firecrawl run Playwright or Puppeteer workflows?
Yes. Interact exposes a CDP URL for compatible clients, including Playwright and Puppeteer. Firecrawl also offers standalone Browser Sandbox sessions. AdsCrawl provides Remote CDP and saved Cloud Browser workflows; compare their creation, connection and cleanup contracts.
Will both APIs return the same Markdown?
Not necessarily. AdsCrawl’s Markdown mode extracts readable article content with Readability; Firecrawl provides Markdown with content-selection options. Use your actual pages to check coverage and formatting, and distinguish a direct text response from a JSON response containing Markdown.
Can I compare the two providers by credit count?
No. The same credit count can represent different work. Compare completed outputs and actual usage for the same pages, extraction settings, proxy needs and browser runtime. This page does not establish a cost, speed or success-rate winner.