Crawl4AI vs Firecrawl
An independent, evidence-based trust comparison of Crawl4AI and Firecrawl, two Research & Data projects in the HVTracker registry. Scores come from public, checkable signals — supply-chain provenance, OSSF Scorecard, maintenance, and adoption — not popularity.
Firecrawl leads on trust — 88.6/100 (Grade A) vs 71.0/100 (Grade B), a 17.6-point gap. Note: Firecrawl's evidence coverage is thinner (coverage B vs A) — its score rests on fewer independent signal types. Full breakdown below.
| Signal | Crawl4AIunclecode/crawl4ai | Firecrawlfirecrawl/firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| HVTrust score | 71.0 | 88.6 |
| Evidence grade | B | A |
| Coverage grade | A | B |
| Overall rank | #314 | #32 |
| Rank in Research & Data | #6 | #2 |
| GitHub stars | 83.8k | 182.0k |
| Last updated | today | today |
| Build provenance | No | Yes |
| OSSF Scorecard | 5.2 / 10 | 5.8 / 10 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Downloads | 290k/wk | 1.2M/wk |
| Trust dimensions (points earned) | ||
| Safety / integrity / 25 | 8.6 | 19.7 |
| Identity & provenance / 18 | 10.8 | 18.0 |
| Transparency / 17 | 12.9 | 13.4 |
| Maintenance / 20 | 17.9 | 20.0 |
| Adoption / 20 | 19.1 | 20.0 |
| Runtime capability surface (full matrix) | ||
| MCP server | Declared | — |
| External providers | 1 — OpenAI | 7 — Anthropic, Firecrawl, Groq, … |
| Requires API keys | Yes | Yes |
| Plugin surface | marketplace | — |
| Provenance drift | Match | Match |
How to read this: HVTrust (0–100) weighs supply-chain signals (provenance, OSSF Scorecard, signed commits, open license) alongside real-world adoption, scaled by an evidence-confidence factor. Grade bands: A ≥ 80, B ≥ 65, C ≥ 50, D < 50. Signals refresh daily. Full methodology v4.3 →