crw

Quickstart — your first scrape in 30 seconds

Get a free API key → fastcrw.com/register — 500 free credits (1 credit ≈ 1 page), no card.

export CRW_API_KEY="crw_live_..."

# cURL — works anywhere, no SDK
curl -X POST https://api.fastcrw.com/v1/scrape \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CRW_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url":"https://example.com","formats":["markdown"]}'

pip install crw

from crw import CrwClient

crw = CrwClient()  # reads CRW_API_KEY from your env
page = crw.scrape("https://example.com",
                  formats=["markdown"])
print(page["markdown"])

npm install crw-sdk

import { CrwClient } from "crw-sdk";

const crw = new CrwClient();  // reads CRW_API_KEY from your env
const page = await crw.scrape("https://example.com",
                              { formats: ["markdown"] });
console.log(page.markdown);

In both SDKs page is a plain object (markdown, metadata, contentType, …), so page["markdown"] / page.markdown is clean content:

# Example Domain

This domain is for use in documentation examples without needing permission. Avoid use in operations.

[Learn more](https://iana.org/domains/example)

Over cURL you get the same fields wrapped in {"success": true, "data": { … }}.

Prefer no SDK? Every example works over plain HTTP against https://api.fastcrw.com. That first scrape spent 1 of your 500 free credits — see plans → when you need more.

Got one page? Crawl the whole site: crw.crawl("https://docs.example.com") returns every page — then search, map, and extract in Core operations. Full docs: Quickstart → · API reference →

Why fastCRW?

• Most accurate — the highest truth-recall (how much of the real page content it captures): 63.7% on 819 labeled URLs in Firecrawl's public dataset, vs Firecrawl 56.0% and Crawl4AI 60.0% — and it recovers 34 pages both miss.
• Fast median, tunable latency — the fastest median latency (p50 1914 ms — a statistical tie with Crawl4AI's 1916 ms, ahead of Firecrawl's 2305 ms). Recall mode maximizes accuracy; fast mode delivers a low p90 (4348 ms) for latency-sensitive workloads. One config toggle — pick accuracy or latency.
• Lighter — one static binary, ~50 MB RAM idle. No Redis, no Node, no Chromium heap in the request path — it runs on a $5 VPS.

Search, map, and crawl run on the same engine — built-in web search (SearXNG, a free self-hostable search backend), so there's no separate search vendor and no per-query search-API bill. See the full benchmark →

Open source (AGPL-3.0), passing OpenSSF Best Practices, and published on PyPI · npm · crates.io · Homebrew · APT — with a benchmark you can rerun yourself, not marketing math.

What you get

• Any URL → LLM-ready output. Clean markdown, HTML, links, or schema-validated JSON — no HTML soup, no boilerplate.
• One API, six operations. search the web and scrape a page, or map / crawl / extract / monitor a whole site — see below.
• Drop-in Firecrawl compatibility. Migrate existing Firecrawl code by changing one base URL.
• Managed or self-hosted, same API. No exit cost — develop against the free open-source binary, ship to the cloud, or the reverse. Nothing changes but the base URL.

Use it in your AI agent (MCP)

fastCRW ships a built-in MCP server, so any MCP host can search/scrape/crawl with no glue code.

# Claude Code — managed
claude mcp add crw \
  -e CRW_API_URL=https://api.fastcrw.com -e CRW_API_KEY=$CRW_API_KEY \
  -- npx -y crw-mcp

# Claude Code — embedded (no server, no key — runs the engine locally, on your machine)
claude mcp add crw -- npx -y crw-mcp

Per-client recipes (Cursor, Windsurf, Cline, Continue.dev, Codex, Gemini CLI): docs.fastcrw.com/mcp-clients/

Agent Skills

Reusable instruction packs that teach coding agents when and how to use each verb. Install all 13 into every detected agent with one command:

npx skills add us/crw            # all skills, every detected agent
npx skills add us/crw@crw-scrape # just one
npx skills add -g us/crw         # global (user-level)

crw (hub) · crw-search · crw-scrape · crw-map · crw-crawl · crw-parse · crw-extract · crw-watch · crw-research · crw-dynamic-search (biggest token-saver) · crw-best-practices · crw-migrate · crw-self-host. Full catalog: skills/.

Core operations

SDK return shapes: scrape / extract → one object · map → list of URLs · crawl → list of result objects · search → list, or a dict grouped by source when sources=[...] is set. Full reference: docs.fastcrw.com/#rest-api.

SDKs & integrations

pip install crw          # Python package: crw
npm install crw-sdk      # Node / TypeScript package: crw-sdk (not crw)

from crw import CrwClient

client = CrwClient()   # reads CRW_API_KEY; set CRW_LOCAL=1 for local embedded mode
client.scrape("https://example.com", formats=["markdown", "links"])
# .search() .map() .crawl() .extract() — one method per operation in the table above

import { CrwClient } from "crw-sdk";

const crw = new CrwClient();  // reads CRW_API_KEY; new CrwClient({ apiUrl }) for self-host
await crw.scrape("https://example.com", { formats: ["markdown", "links"] });
// .search() .map() .crawl() .extract() — same methods, all typed

The TypeScript client is typed and zero-dependency; its cloud path is pure fetch, so it runs on Node 18+, Bun, Deno, and edge runtimes. The Python client is synchronous — wrap long calls like crawl() / extract() in asyncio.to_thread inside async code. Both client SDKs (crw, crw-sdk) are MIT-licensed — installing them imposes nothing on your code; AGPL-3.0 covers only the engine.

LangChain and CrewAI integrations ship in the package:

from crw.integrations.langchain import CrwLoader          # pip install crw[langchain]
from crw.integrations.crewai import CrwScrapeWebsiteTool   # pip install crw[crewai]

All integrations → · SDK examples →

Managed cloud vs self-host

Same binary, same