> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/firecrawl/firecrawl/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> Turn websites into LLM-ready data with Firecrawl's powerful scraping, crawling, and extraction API

# Welcome to Firecrawl

Firecrawl is an API that scrapes, crawls, and extracts structured data from any website, powering AI agents and apps with real-time context from the web.

## Why Firecrawl?

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="LLM-Ready Output" icon="robot" href="/features/scrape">
    Clean markdown, structured JSON, screenshots, HTML, and more - perfectly formatted for AI applications
  </Card>

  <Card title="Industry-Leading Reliability" icon="shield-check">
    > 80% coverage on benchmark evaluations, outperforming every other provider tested
  </Card>

  <Card title="Handles Complex Sites" icon="globe" href="/features/scrape">
    Proxies, JavaScript rendering, and dynamic content that breaks other scrapers
  </Card>

  <Card title="Advanced Customization" icon="sliders" href="/advanced/actions">
    Exclude tags, crawl behind auth walls, control depth, actions, and more
  </Card>

  <Card title="Media Parsing" icon="file" href="/advanced/formats">
    Automatic text extraction from PDFs, DOCX, and images
  </Card>

  <Card title="Batch Processing" icon="layer-group" href="/features/batch-scrape">
    Scrape thousands of URLs asynchronously with change tracking over time
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Core Features

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Scrape" icon="newspaper" href="/features/scrape">
    Convert any URL to markdown, HTML, screenshots, or structured JSON
  </Card>

  <Card title="Crawl" icon="spider" href="/features/crawl">
    Scrape all URLs of a website with a single request
  </Card>

  <Card title="Search" icon="magnifying-glass" href="/features/search">
    Search the web and get full page content from results
  </Card>

  <Card title="Agent" icon="wand-magic-sparkles" href="/features/agent">
    Automated data gathering - just describe what you need, no URLs required
  </Card>

  <Card title="Map" icon="sitemap" href="/features/map">
    Discover all URLs on a website instantly
  </Card>

  <Card title="Extract" icon="database" href="/features/scrape">
    Extract structured data using schemas with AI-powered extraction
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Quick Example

Get started in seconds with a simple API call:

```bash theme={null}
curl -X POST 'https://api.firecrawl.dev/v2/scrape' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer fc-YOUR_API_KEY' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}'
```

<Note>
  Sign up at [firecrawl.dev](https://firecrawl.dev) to get your API key and start extracting data. Try the [playground](https://firecrawl.dev/playground) to test it out.
</Note>

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="/quickstart">
    Get up and running in 5 minutes with our quickstart guide
  </Card>

  <Card title="Authentication" icon="key" href="/authentication">
    Learn how to get and use your API keys
  </Card>

  <Card title="API Reference" icon="code" href="/api-reference/introduction">
    Explore the complete API documentation
  </Card>

  <Card title="SDKs" icon="book" href="/sdks/python">
    Install our Python, Node.js, Go, or Rust SDKs
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Use Cases

Firecrawl powers a wide range of applications:

* **AI Agents & RAG Systems** - Provide real-time web context to LLMs
* **Lead Generation** - Extract company information and contact data at scale
* **Market Research** - Monitor competitor pricing and product changes
* **Content Aggregation** - Build knowledge bases from multiple sources
* **SEO Analysis** - Analyze website structure and metadata
* **Price Monitoring** - Track pricing changes across e-commerce sites

## Open Source

Firecrawl is open source under the AGPL-3.0 license. The cloud version at [firecrawl.dev](https://firecrawl.dev) includes additional features like enhanced reliability, priority support, and enterprise-grade infrastructure.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="GitHub Repository" icon="github" href="https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl">
    Star us on GitHub and contribute to the project
  </Card>

  <Card title="Community" icon="discord" href="https://discord.com/invite/gSmWdAkdwd">
    Join our Discord community for support and discussions
  </Card>
</CardGroup>


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.