firecrawl-migration-deep-dive

Migrate to Firecrawl from Puppeteer, Playwright, Cheerio, or other scraping tools. Use when replacing custom scraping code with Firecrawl, migrating between scraping APIs, or re-platforming content ingestion pipelines. Trigger with phrases like "migrate to firecrawl", "replace puppeteer with firecrawl", "switch to firecrawl", "firecrawl vs puppeteer", "firecrawl migration".

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Firecrawl Migration Deep Dive

Current State

!npm list puppeteer playwright cheerio 2>/dev/null | grep -E "puppeteer|playwright|cheerio" || echo 'No scraping libs found'

Overview

Migrate from custom scraping (Puppeteer, Playwright, Cheerio) or competing APIs to Firecrawl. Firecrawl eliminates browser management, anti-bot handling, and JS rendering infrastructure. This skill shows equivalent code for common scraping patterns.

Migration Comparison

Feature	Puppeteer/Playwright	Cheerio	Firecrawl
JS rendering	Manual browser	No	Automatic
Anti-bot bypass	DIY (stealth plugin)	No	Built-in
Output format	Raw HTML	Parsed HTML	Markdown/JSON/HTML
Infrastructure	Browser instances	None	API call
Concurrent scraping	Manage browser pool	Simple	Managed by Firecrawl
Cost model	Compute (CPU/RAM)	Free	Credits per page

Instructions

Step 1: Replace Puppeteer Single-Page Scrape

// BEFORE: Puppeteer (20+ lines, browser management)
import puppeteer from "puppeteer";

async function scrapePuppeteer(url: string) {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto(url, { waitUntil: "networkidle2" });
  const html = await page.content();
  const title = await page.title();
  await browser.close();
  return { html, title };
}

// AFTER: Firecrawl (5 lines, no browser needed)
import FirecrawlApp from "@mendable/firecrawl-js";

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

async function scrapeFirecrawl(url: string) {
  const result = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, {
    formats: ["markdown"],
    onlyMainContent: true,
    waitFor: 2000,
  });
  return { markdown: result.markdown, title: result.metadata?.title };
}

Step 2: Replace Cheerio HTML Parsing

// BEFORE: fetch + cheerio (manual parsing)
import * as cheerio from "cheerio";

async function scrapeCheerio(url: string) {
  const html = await fetch(url).then(r => r.text());
  const $ = cheerio.load(html);
  return {
    title: $("h1").first().text(),
    content: $("main").text(),
    links: $("a").map((_, el) => $(el).attr("href")).get(),
  };
}

// AFTER: Firecrawl with extract (LLM-powered, no CSS selectors)
async function extractFirecrawl(url: string) {
  const result = await firecrawl.scrapeUrl(url, {
    formats: ["extract", "links"],
    extract: {
      schema: {
        type: "object",
        properties: {
          title: { type: "string" },
          content: { type: "string" },
        },
      },
    },
  });
  return {
    title: result.extract?.title,
    content: result.extract?.content,
    links: result.links,
  };
}

Step 3: Replace Crawl Pipeline

// BEFORE: Playwright crawler (100+ lines, queue, browser pool)
// - launch browser pool
// - manage visited URLs set
// - extract links, enqueue
// - handle errors per page
// - close browsers on exit

// AFTER: Firecrawl crawl (10 lines)
async function crawlSite(baseUrl: string) {
  const result = await firecrawl.crawlUrl(baseUrl, {
    limit: 100,
    maxDepth: 3,
    includePaths: ["/docs/*", "/api/*"],
    excludePaths: ["/blog/*"],
    scrapeOptions: {
      formats: ["markdown"],
      onlyMainContent: true,
    },
  });

  return result.data?.map(page => ({
    url: page.metadata?.sourceURL,
    title: page.metadata?.title,
    content: page.markdown,
  }));
}

Step 4: Gradual Migration with Adapter Pattern

// Adapter interface for gradual migration
interface ScrapeAdapter {
  scrape(url: string): Promise<{ title: string; content: string }>;
  crawl(url: string, maxPages: number): Promise<Array<{ url: string; content: string }>>;
}

class FirecrawlAdapter implements ScrapeAdapter {
  private client: FirecrawlApp;

  constructor() {
    this.client = new FirecrawlApp({ apiKey: process.env.FIRECRAWL_API_KEY! });
  }

  async scrape(url: string) {
    const result = await this.client.scrapeUrl(url, {
      formats: ["markdown"],
      onlyMainContent: true,
    });
    return {
      title: result.metadata?.title || "",
      content: result.markdown || "",
    };
  }

  async crawl(url: string, maxPages: number) {
    const result = await this.client.crawlUrl(url, {
      limit: maxPages,
      scrapeOptions: { formats: ["markdown"], onlyMainContent: true },
    });
    return (result.data || []).map(page => ({
      url: page.metadata?.sourceURL || url,
      content: page.markdown || "",
    }));
  }
}

// Feature flag controlled migration
function getScrapeAdapter(): ScrapeAdapter {
  if (process.env.USE_FIRECRAWL === "true") {
    return new FirecrawlAdapter();
  }
  return new LegacyPuppeteerAdapter();
}

Step 5: Remove Old Dependencies

set -euo pipefail
# After migration is complete and verified
npm uninstall puppeteer puppeteer-core
npm uninstall playwright @playwright/test
npm uninstall cheerio

# Remove browser downloads
npx playwright uninstall --all 2>/dev/null || true

# Verify no lingering references
grep -r "puppeteer\|playwright\|cheerio" src/ --include="*.ts" || echo "Clean!"

Migration Checklist

Install @mendable/firecrawl-js
Create adapter layer wrapping Firecrawl
Replace single-page scrapes with scrapeUrl
Replace crawl loops with crawlUrl
Replace HTML parsing with extract or markdown
Feature flag to switch between old and new
Run both in parallel, compare outputs
Remove old scraping dependencies
Delete browser management code

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Different output format	Puppeteer returns HTML, Firecrawl markdown	Adjust downstream consumers
Missing CSS selector data	Firecrawl doesn't use selectors	Use `extract` with JSON schema
Higher latency for single pages	API call vs local browser	Acceptable trade-off for zero infra
Content differences	Different JS wait timing	Tune `waitFor` parameter

Resources

Next Steps

For advanced troubleshooting, see firecrawl-advanced-troubleshooting.

Repository: jeremylongshore/claude-code-plugins-plus-skills
Path: plugins/saas-packs/firecrawl-pack/skills/firecrawl-migration-deep-dive/SKILL.md
Commit: 0540a62

Last updated: 1 day ago
First committed: 8 months ago

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