Jina Reader vs Firecrawl
Jina Reader vs Firecrawl on the same Wikipedia page: Jina returned 94,415 tokens, Firecrawl 112,517, and FATSEARCH answered the same question in 1,384. All three found the answer.
We make FATSEARCH. The numbers below are our own runs, dated. Where another reader is the better pick, we say so.
| One page, | 38 hard pages, | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reader | Tokens in context | Answer found | Model bill | Answer in the text | Agent answered right | Tokens per question |
| FATSEARCH | 1,384 | yes | $0.0028 | 35/38 | 26/38 | 2.6k |
| Firecrawl | 112,517 | yes | $0.23 | 24/38 | 24/38 | 2.8k |
| Jina Reader | 94,415 | yes | $0.19 | 8/38 | — | — |
One page: Wikipedia “Rust (programming language)”, default settings, one run each. Tokens = Anthropic’s own counter; fats = outline + one filter + one section. Model bill = tokens × $2 per million input tokens (Claude Sonnet 5.5, ); reader fees not included.
Hard pages: Social, news, shops, travel, classifieds, search: pages a built-in fetch can’t read. FATSEARCH 0.1.0, 2026-10-16, one run each; Firecrawl’s copy was cut to fit the agent run. “—” = not in that run.
What each returned
Both Jina Reader and Firecrawl delivered the full page as Markdown. Jina’s copy weighed 94,415 tokens; Firecrawl’s 112,517. The difference comes from how each converts HTML: Firecrawl keeps more navigation, image markup and table formatting. FATSEARCH skipped the full dump (outline, filter, one section) and totalled 1,384 tokens for the same answer.
At $2/M input tokens the model bill per read is $0.19 for Jina, $0.23 for Firecrawl, and $0.0028 for FATSEARCH. Method and raw files: benchmarks.
Hard pages: where the gap shows
On 38 hard pages (social, news, shops, travel), Firecrawl found the answer 24/38 and ran an agent loop that got 24/38 right at 2.8k per question. Jina without a key found it 8/38. That gap is about access, not rendering: both render JavaScript, but Jina’s keyless tier refused anonymous requests to many of these sites. Firecrawl declined some sites too (social networks, a news site, an airline). FATSEARCH found the answer 35/38 by falling back to a paid provider when the plain fetch fails.
For the broader picture: Jina Reader alternatives, Firecrawl alternatives, or the comparison hub.
Reader by reader
FATSEARCH
Local CLI + MCP server, your own provider key. Measured: outline, then one filter, then one section (plain HTTP, $0).
1,384 tokens across three reads. First lines:
= j11.u46 Rust (programming language) - Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · 57 sections · 6 photos · 2 videos · 40.9ktok · pl… u46#0 info | author Contributors to Wikimedia projects · published 2010-10-30T22:30:54Z · modified 2026-10-15T20:56:59Z m1 photo 250x167 png | A bright orange crab icon → https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Rustacean-or… m2 photo 250x314 png | (no alt) → https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Rust_standard_libraries.svg/5… m3 photo 250x193 png | (no alt) → https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Cargo_clippy_hello_world_exam… … +10 media → fats u46 media u46#1 (top) (9) | Jump to content u46#9 Syntax and features (9.2k, 27 sub) | [edit [l175] ] Main article: Rust syntax [l176] Rust's syntax [l177] is simil…
Price: $0.001–0.0065 per hard page, $0 plain pages (github.com, checked )
Firecrawl
Hosted scrape, crawl + search API (AGPL core), MCP server. Measured: v2 /scrape, markdown, default settings.
112,517 tokens, 81× what FATSEARCH used. First lines:
[Jump to content](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_(programming_language)#bodyContent) [ | - [Multi-paradigm](https://en…
Price: Free: 1,000 credits a month (one scraped page = one credit). Hobby: $16 a month billed yearly ($19 monthly) for 5,000 credits. Standard: $83 a month billed yearly for 100,000. (firecrawl.dev, checked )
When it’s better: You want a whole site, not one page. Firecrawl crawls a site in one request, maps its URLs, batch-scrapes many pages and returns structured JSON or screenshots. It can also search, click through a page, and turn PDFs and DOCX into Markdown. Its core is open source under the AGPL and can be self-hosted, though some features are Cloud-only. FATSEARCH has no crawler and no DOCX yet.
Jina Reader
Hosted URL-to-Markdown reader, MCP server. Measured: r.jina.ai, no key.
94,415 tokens, 68× what FATSEARCH used. First lines:
Title: Rust (programming language) URL Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rust_(programming_language) Published Time: 2010-10-30T22:30:54Z Markdown Content: | Rust | | --- | | [ | * [Multi-paradigm](https://en…
Price: Free without a key at 20 requests a minute. With a key it is billed by output tokens; a new key comes with 10M free tokens. (jina.ai, checked )
When it’s better: Zero install, no account. Put r.jina.ai/ in front of a URL and you get Markdown back. Good for a quick one-off read in a script.
Questions
What is Jina Reader and what does it do?
Jina Reader converts a URL to Markdown over HTTP. Send a request to r.jina.ai/{url} and the service returns the page as Markdown text. Jina AI, which makes it, is now part of Elastic. Free without a key at 20 requests a minute. With a key it is billed by output tokens; a new key comes with 10M free tokens.
How much does Jina AI cost?
Free without a key at 20 requests a minute. With a key it is billed by output tokens; a new key comes with 10M free tokens. Jina's Wikipedia output cost $0.19 in model input at $2/M. Firecrawl's cost $0.23 for the same page. FATSEARCH: $0.0028.
What are some tools similar to Firecrawl?
Readers we tested on the same page: FATSEARCH (1,384 tokens), Jina Reader (94,415), Tavily, Oxylabs and Bright Data. Our Firecrawl alternatives page has all of them.
Try FATSEARCH on your own pages
Free and open source. Bring any one key, or none.
curl -fsSL https://fatsearch.com/install.sh | shnpm i -g fatsearchbrew install fatsearch/tap/fatsearchcargo install --locked fatsearchor let your agent do it
Read and follow fatsearch.com/agent-setup/SKILL.md