SHSelfHostIndex

Firecrawl vs Restate

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted automation & workflows options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FI Firecrawl Turn websites into clean data for AI applications VS RE Restate Durable execution engine for resilient applications
FeatureFirecrawlRestate
CategoryAutomation & WorkflowsAutomation & Workflows
LicenseAGPL-3.0BUSL-1.1
LanguageTypeScriptRust
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM2,048 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, sourcedocker, binary
GitHub stars★ 162,961★ 4,263
First released20242023
ReplacesApifyTemporal

Why pick each one

Choose Firecrawl if…

  • Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 163k GitHub stars
  • Written in TypeScript
Firecrawl details

Choose Restate if…

  • Released under the BUSL-1.1 license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (4.3k GitHub stars)
  • Written in Rust
Restate details

Frequently asked questions

Is Firecrawl or Restate better?

Neither is universally better. Firecrawl has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Firecrawl and Restate free and open-source?

Yes. Firecrawl is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Restate under BUSL-1.1. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Firecrawl and Restate with Docker?

Firecrawl: yes. Restate: yes.

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