Firecrawl vs Tavily

Firecrawl and Tavily are both in Search and retrieval in this directory. The table repeats the description, category, transport, auth, publisher mark, and links stored on each listing. A field this directory does not have says Not listed. This page is not a ranking and does not add features, prices, or test results.

Firecrawl listing Tavily listing

Firecrawl vs Tavily
Field	Firecrawl	Tavily
Description	Firecrawl is an MCP server an agent can use to search the web and scrape pages into structured data.	Tavily is an MCP server for web search, with extract, map, and crawl tools.
Category	Search and retrieval	Search and retrieval
Transport	The README says the default local transport is stdio, with SSE support, and Streamable HTTP locally when HTTP_STREAMABLE_SERVER=true at http://localhost:3000/mcp.	The remote Claude Code example uses HTTP (--transport http). The local section shows an npx command and does not name stdio or HTTP for that command.
Auth	Keyless free tier for scrape, search, and parse, which the README says is rate-limited. OAuth URL https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp-oauth. API key as Authorization: Bearer, or FIRECRAWL_API_KEY for the local command. The README says crawl, map, and agent still need a key.	API key in the tavilyApiKey query parameter or an Authorization: Bearer header. OAuth on the remote server is optional. The local example sets TAVILY_API_KEY. The README says a free account is available at https://app.tavily.com/home.
Publisher	Not listed	Not listed
Listing link	https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server	https://github.com/tavily-ai/tavily-mcp
Repository	https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server	https://github.com/tavily-ai/tavily-mcp
Homepage	https://firecrawl.dev	https://tavily.com
Source	https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl-mcp-server/blob/main/README.md	https://github.com/tavily-ai/tavily-mcp/blob/main/README.md

Connect it: Firecrawl

from vendor docs, not tested by us

Source: Firecrawl MCP server README

The README shows the keyless remote URL and the local command with the placeholder your-api-key.

Remote URL

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "url": "https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http firecrawl "https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp"

Cursor

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "url": "https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp"
    }
  }
}

VS Code

{
  "servers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Local command

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "firecrawl-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add firecrawl -- npx -y firecrawl-mcp

Cursor

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "firecrawl-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

VS Code

{
  "servers": {
    "firecrawl": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "firecrawl-mcp"
      ],
      "env": {
        "FIRECRAWL_API_KEY": "your-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Connect it: Tavily

from vendor docs, not tested by us

Source: Tavily MCP README

The README also shows a tavilyApiKey query parameter on the remote URL. This snippet uses the URL it prints without a key.

Remote URL

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tavily": {
      "url": "https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http tavily "https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp"

Cursor

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tavily": {
      "url": "https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

VS Code

{
  "servers": {
    "tavily": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.tavily.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Local command

Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tavily": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "tavily-mcp@latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add tavily -- npx -y tavily-mcp@latest

Cursor

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tavily": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "tavily-mcp@latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

VS Code

{
  "servers": {
    "tavily": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "tavily-mcp@latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}