The benchmark goal was simple: measure what matters for production AI workflows. We tested each tool on the same URLs, from static pages to protected targets, then scored reliability, latency, and markdown quality. Full benchmark code and raw data are open source.
Key Takeaways
- WebPeel was the only runner to reach 30/30 (100%) success and also had the highest quality score (92.3%).
- WebPeel is not the fastest — it ranked 4th in median speed at 373ms. Tavily, Exa, and Firecrawl were faster.
- That speed tradeoff is intentional: WebPeel prioritizes live retrieval and escalation over lightweight or cached responses when pages are difficult.
- Category coverage is where reliability diverges most — especially on protected and document-heavy targets.
- Pricing: WebPeel is $0.002/page vs Firecrawl at $0.016/page in this comparison model (8x difference).
If your only goal is minimum latency, WebPeel is not the winner in this run. If your goal is REAL data, not cached results, with high completion across difficult pages, the latency tradeoff is often worth it. We think publishing both sides is the only useful way to benchmark.
Overall Results
| Runner | Success Rate | Median Speed | Quality Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| WebPeel | 30/30 (100%) | 373ms | 92.3% |
| Firecrawl | 28/30 (93.3%) | 231ms | 77.9% |
| Exa | 28/30 (93.3%) | 132ms | 83.2% |
| Tavily | 25/30 (83.3%) | 47ms | 81.2% |
| LinkUp | 28/30 (93.3%) | 4,518ms | 81.3% |
| ScrapingBee | 24/30 (80.0%) | 1,728ms | 74.4% |
| Jina Reader | 16/30 (53.3%) | 2,908ms | 69.1% |
Success Rate
Share of URLs that returned meaningful content (not empty pages, unsupported-site messages, or hard failures).
Median Speed (lower is better)
WebPeel is 4th fastest in this run. Tavily, Exa, and Firecrawl are faster on median latency.
Quality Score
Quality score measures usable markdown output: content completeness, title/metadata fidelity, and extraction usefulness for LLM workflows.
WebPeel does more work per page when needed: it starts light, then escalates to browser and anti-bot paths for hard targets. That raises median latency, but it also explains the 30/30 completion and top quality score. In short: speed is traded for reliability and freshness.
Category Breakdown (30 URLs, 6 categories)
Each category includes five URLs. This shows where tools diverge in real workloads, especially under anti-bot friction and document complexity.
| Category | WebPeel | Firecrawl | Exa | Tavily | LinkUp | ScrapingBee | Jina Reader |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Static | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 4/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 4/5 |
| Dynamic | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| SPA | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 |
| Protected | 5/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 2/5 | 4/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 |
| Documents | 5/5 | 5/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 4/5 | 3/5 | 0/5 |
| Edge / Intl | 5/5 | 4/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 5/5 | 4/5 | 0/5 |
Category rows are success counts out of 5 URLs per category on the same benchmark set.
Pricing Comparison
Pricing is hard to normalize because billing units differ (credits, tokens, endpoint-specific costs). We convert to per-page equivalents where possible and call out uncertainty.
| Tool | Benchmark Price / Page | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| WebPeel | $0.002/page | Direct per-page model used in this benchmark. |
| Firecrawl | $0.016/page | 8x higher than WebPeel in this comparison. |
| Exa | ~$0.006/page | Approximate search + content retrieval blend. |
| Tavily | ~$0.0016–$0.016/page | Varies by endpoint depth and credits used. |
| LinkUp | ~$0.01/page | Search-based pricing, varies by depth. |
| ScrapingBee | ~$0.0005–$0.0125/page | Strongly depends on JS rendering and proxy tier. |
| Jina Reader | Variable (token-based) | No single published flat per-page price. |
Methodology
How this benchmark was run
- 30 URLs total, split into 6 categories: static, dynamic, SPA, protected, documents, and edge/international.
- Same environment for all runs: single machine, same network, same benchmark harness.
- Serial execution (no parallelism), so each runner gets equivalent conditions.
- 30-second timeout per URL and default runner settings unless required by a provider API.
- Metrics reported: success rate, median speed, and quality score from extracted markdown output.
- Open data: benchmark scripts and JSON outputs are published in the repository for verification.
What the numbers mean in practice
- If you optimize for pure speed, Tavily and Exa led this run.
- If you optimize for managed ecosystem integrations, Firecrawl and Exa are strong options.
- If you optimize for reliability + quality across difficult pages, WebPeel is the clear leader in this benchmark.
- If you need live, high-fidelity page retrieval instead of cached/indexed approximations, WebPeel’s slower median is a deliberate tradeoff.
Our view: benchmark data should help teams choose tradeoffs, not sell a narrative. On this run, WebPeel was the only tool with both perfect completion and top output quality. It was also only the 4th fastest. Both statements are true, and both matter.
Code and data are public: github.com/webpeel/webpeel/tree/main/benchmarks. If your workload differs, run the suite with your own URL set and compare outcomes directly.
Updated February 17, 2026. Runners benchmarked: WebPeel, Firecrawl, Exa, Tavily, LinkUp, ScrapingBee, and Jina Reader. Results reflect this test configuration and may change as providers update infrastructure, pricing, and anti-bot behavior.