Free alternative

Free alternative to Context.dev

Context.dev costs €18 a month. Firecrawl does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.

Public entry price, taken from Context.dev’s website (context.dev). Over a year, that is €216 that stays in your pocket.

How much does Context.dev cost in 2026?

Context.dev’s public plans, checked on 26 October 2026 on context.dev. Prices rounded up to the next euro.

  • Free Tier

    €0

    1,000 credits a month with no credit card, which is 1,000 pages, JavaScript rendering and proxies included. No overage.

  • Developer

    about €18 a month (20 dollars)

    10,000 credits a month and 10 concurrent requests. Beyond that, about €3 (3 dollars) per 1,000 credits. About €15 a month (17 dollars) billed yearly.

  • Pro

    about €78 a month (90 dollars)

    100,000 credits a month and 100 concurrent requests. Beyond that, about €2 (2 dollars) per 1,000 credits. About €65 a month (75 dollars) billed yearly.

  • Enterprise

    Custom quote

    Custom credit volume, single sign-on (SSO) and a 99.9% uptime commitment.

Prices in dollars, converted to euros here. Billed yearly, two months are free. See the official pricing page ↗

What replaces Context.dev

The main alternative

Firecrawl

🟡 Intermediate⏱️ ~30 min to installSave €18/mo

Firecrawl is the open source alternative to Context.dev: it turns any website into clean Markdown for Claude and AI agents. Give it a page, it returns the text without menus or ads. It also crawls a whole site, lists its URLs, searches the web and, with an AI model (OpenAI or a local model through Ollama), pulls structured data out of it. At home, it runs with Docker Compose under the AGPL-3.0 license: free, with no credit meter, and connected to Claude through its MCP server. Their cloud gives 1,000 credits a month, then about €17 a month (19 dollars). The limit: their anti robot engine, proxy rotation, screenshots and actions (clicking, filling) stay reserved for the cloud. On a protected site, you need your own proxies, which are paid.

Loucash’s verdict on Firecrawl

7/10

Firecrawl does the same job as Context.dev: a page, a whole site or a web search, turned into clean Markdown for Claude and your agents. At home, it is free with no credit meter. What I like: the project is closely followed and updated almost every day, the code is under a real open source license (AGPL-3.0), and the official MCP server connects it to Claude with no subscription. You can use it for yourself or your company without publishing anything: only someone who modifies it and offers it online to others has to share their code. Why 7 and not more: the free version lacks what their cloud charges for. The anti robot engine, proxy rotation, screenshots and actions stay with them, while Context.dev includes proxies even on its free plan. And the install runs several Docker services, with a password free API that you have to protect yourself.

Who it is for: You want to give Claude or your agents the web (reading pages, crawling sites, searching) without paying per credit, and Docker does not scare you. If you need to collect heavily protected sites at scale, or take screenshots, Context.dev or Firecrawl's cloud will still be needed.

Firecrawl versus Context.dev: the match

  • Price

    Firecrawl

    €0 on your machine

    Context.dev

    €18/month (Developer)

  • Pages a month

    Firecrawl

    Unlimited

    Context.dev

    10,000 (1,000 on the free plan)

  • Protected sites (anti robot, proxies)

    Firecrawl

    Your own proxies, paid

    Context.dev

    Included, even on the free plan

The prompt that installs Firecrawl

Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.

Installe Firecrawl sur ma machine : c'est l'outil open source qui transforme des sites web en Markdown propre pour les agents IA, l'alternative à Context.dev (dépôt GitHub firecrawl/firecrawl, documentation docs.firecrawl.dev). Vérifie d'abord que Git, Docker et Docker Compose sont installés, que Docker a assez de mémoire pour faire tourner plusieurs services, et que le port 3002 est libre. Suis ensuite le guide d'auto-hébergement de la documentation (docs.firecrawl.dev/contributing/self-host) : clone le dépôt, place-toi sur la version qu'il a vérifiée, crée le fichier .env minimal qu'il donne en remplaçant le mot de passe PostgreSQL par une valeur longue et aléatoire, puis construis et lance l'ensemble avec Docker Compose. Vérifie que l'API répond sur http://localhost:3002 en récupérant une page publique en Markdown. Branche ensuite Firecrawl à Claude avec le serveur MCP officiel (dépôt GitHub firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server), en réglant FIRECRAWL_API_URL sur l'adresse de mon API. Si je veux extraire des données structurées, propose-moi Ollama pour un modèle local gratuit, ou ma clé OpenAI. L'API n'a pas de mot de passe par défaut : si c'est sur un serveur, ne l'ouvre pas sur Internet sans authentification ni HTTPS. Explique-moi aussi quoi faire si un site bloque Firecrawl (proxies), et comment le mettre à jour. Explique chaque étape simplement, je débute.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Context.dev cost?
Free Tier: €0; Developer: about €18 a month (20 dollars); Pro: about €78 a month (90 dollars); Enterprise: Custom quote. Prices checked on 26 October 2026 on context.dev.
Is Context.dev free?
Partly, with limits. 1,000 credits a month with no credit card, which is 1,000 pages, JavaScript rendering and proxies included. No overage. Beyond that, the Developer plan costs about €18 a month (20 dollars). Firecrawl does the same thing for free, in open source.
Is Firecrawl really free?
Yes. Firecrawl is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. Context.dev, on the other hand, costs €18 a month.
Do I need to code to install Firecrawl?
No. The level is intermediate and the install takes about 30 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
How is it different from Context.dev?
Firecrawl does most of what Context.dev does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
Do I own my data?
Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.

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