firecrawl-performance-tuning

Firecrawl Performance Tuning

Overview

Optimize Firecrawl API performance by choosing efficient scraping modes, caching results, using batch endpoints, and minimizing unnecessary rendering. Key levers: format selection (markdown vs HTML vs screenshot), waitFor tuning, onlyMainContent, and batch vs individual scraping.

Latency Benchmarks

Instructions

Step 1: Minimize Formats (Biggest Win)

import FirecrawlApp from "@mendable/firecrawl-js";

const firecrawl = new FirecrawlApp({
  apiKey: process.env.FIRECRAWL_API_KEY!,
});

// SLOW: requesting everything
const slow = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, {
  formats: ["markdown", "html", "links", "screenshot"],
  // screenshot + full HTML = 3-5x slower
});

// FAST: request only what you need
const fast = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, {
  formats: ["markdown"],   // markdown only = fastest
  onlyMainContent: true,   // skip nav/footer/sidebar
});

Step 2: Tune waitFor for JS-Heavy Pages

// Default: no JS wait (fastest, works for static sites)
const staticResult = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl("https://docs.example.com", {
  formats: ["markdown"],
  // No waitFor needed — content is in initial HTML
});

// SPA/dynamic pages: add minimal wait
const spaResult = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl("https://app.example.com", {
  formats: ["markdown"],
  waitFor: 3000,  // 3s — enough for most SPAs
  onlyMainContent: true,
});

// Heavy interactive page: use actions instead of long wait
const heavyResult = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl("https://dashboard.example.com", {
  formats: ["markdown"],
  actions: [
    { type: "wait", selector: ".data-table" },  // wait for specific element
    { type: "scroll", direction: "down" },        // trigger lazy loading
  ],
});

Step 3: Cache Scraped Content

import { LRUCache } from "lru-cache";
import { createHash } from "crypto";

const scrapeCache = new LRUCache<string, any>({
  max: 500,          // max 500 cached pages
  ttl: 3600000,      // 1 hour TTL
});

async function cachedScrape(url: string) {
  const key = createHash("md5").update(url).digest("hex");
  const cached = scrapeCache.get(key);
  if (cached) {
    console.log(`Cache hit: ${url}`);
    return cached;
  }

  const result = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, {
    formats: ["markdown"],
    onlyMainContent: true,
  });

  if (result.success) {
    scrapeCache.set(key, result);
  }
  return result;
}
// Typical savings: 50-80% credit reduction for repeated scrapes

Step 4: Use Batch Scrape for Multiple URLs

// SLOW: sequential individual scrapes
const urls = ["https://a.com", "https://b.com", "https://c.com"];
for (const url of urls) {
  await firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, { formats: ["markdown"] }); // 3 API calls
}

// FAST: single batch scrape call
const batchResult = await firecrawl.batchScrapeUrls(urls, {
  formats: ["markdown"],
  onlyMainContent: true,
});
// 1 API call, internally parallelized

Step 5: Map Before Crawl (Save Credits)

// EXPENSIVE: crawl everything, filter later
await firecrawl.crawlUrl("https://docs.example.com", { limit: 1000 });

// CHEAPER: map first (1 credit), then scrape only what you need
const map = await firecrawl.mapUrl("https://docs.example.com");
const apiDocs = (map.links || []).filter(url =>
  url.includes("/api/") || url.includes("/reference/")
);
console.log(`Map: ${map.links?.length} total, ${apiDocs.length} relevant`);

// Batch scrape only relevant URLs
const result = await firecrawl.batchScrapeUrls(apiDocs.slice(0, 50), {
  formats: ["markdown"],
});

Step 6: Measure Scrape Performance

async function timedScrape(url: string) {
  const start = Date.now();
  const result = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, { formats: ["markdown"] });
  const duration = Date.now() - start;

  console.log({
    url,
    durationMs: duration,
    contentLength: result.markdown?.length || 0,
    success: result.success,
    charsPerSecond: Math.round((result.markdown?.length || 0) / (duration / 1000)),
  });

  return result;
}

Error Handling

Examples

Performance Comparison Script

const url = "https://docs.firecrawl.dev";

// Compare different format configurations
for (const formats of [["markdown"], ["markdown", "html"], ["markdown", "html", "screenshot"]]) {
  const start = Date.now();
  await firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, { formats: formats as any, onlyMainContent: true });
  console.log(`${formats.join(",")}: ${Date.now() - start}ms`);
}

Resources

• Advanced Scraping Guide
• Batch Scrape
• Map Endpoint
• LRU Cache

Next Steps

For cost optimization, see firecrawl-cost-tuning.