Paper Search vs firecrawl
Paper Search is an MCP server published by openags. Marketplaces we read that list it: 1 (Docker MCP Catalog). firecrawl is a plugin bundle for AI coding tools published by firecrawl. Marketplaces we read that list it: 3 (Claude Code: claude-plugins-official, Claude Code: claude-plugins-community, Community GitHub marketplaces). As of our marketplace pass on 2026-10-12. This pair was picked by a reader, not by our comparison rule, so search engines are asked not to index the page.
Where each is published
| Marketplace | ||
|---|---|---|
| Docker MCP Catalog | Listed Version: sha256:19d0af269a55 Forks (GitHub): 294 Pulls (Docker Hub): 45 045 Stars (Docker Hub): 5 Stars (GitHub): 2 789 Not marked · First seen |
Not listed |
| Claude Code: claude-plugins-official | Not listed | Listed Version: 1.0.9 Forks (GitHub): 33 Stars (GitHub): 237 Not marked · First seen |
| Claude Code: claude-plugins-community | Not listed | Listed Version: 1.0.9 No figure published Not marked · First seen |
Each figure is the marketplace's own and is never added up across marketplaces. A marketplace that publishes no figure shows none: no number is not zero.
The facts side by side
| Fact | Paper Search | firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplaces that list it (differs) | 1 (worse) | 3 (better) |
| Stars (GitHub) (differs) | 2 789 (better) | 237 (worse) |
| Pulls (Docker Hub) (differs) | 45 045 | No figure on Docker Hub |
| Forks (GitHub) (differs) | 294 (better) | 33 (worse) |
| Last release | Not published | Not published |
| Where it runs (differs) | On your machine (mcp/paper-search) | Installs as a plugin bundle |
| Transport (differs) | stdio | Not stated |
| Tools it declares (differs) | 57 | Not published |
| Environment variables it asks for | Not published | Not published |
| Parts of the bundle (differs) | Not a bundle | 14 |
| Licence (differs) | MIT | Not stated |
| Repository (differs) | github.com/openags/paper-search-mcp | github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl-claude-plugin |
| Changes in the last 7 days (differs) | 0 | 2 |
| First seen | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-11 |
Lines where the two differ have a tinted background and bold values. Where the data itself says which value is better (more marketplaces, a larger figure of the same marketplace, a fresher release, a verified mark on a marketplace that lists both), the better one is also marked green with ▲ and the worse one red with ▼. Where it runs, the transport, the tools, the settings, hooks, the bundle's parts, the licence and the week's changes are marked only as different: more or fewer is not better in itself.
What each says it does
Paper Search
MCP, CLI, Skills for searching and downloading academic papers from multiple sources like arXiv, PubMed, bioRxiv, etc.
firecrawl
Web scraping and crawling powered by Firecrawl. Turn any website into clean, LLM-ready markdown or structured data. Scrape single pages, crawl entire sites, search the web, and extract structured information. Includes an AI agent for autonomous multi-source data gathering - just describe what you need and it finds, navigates, and extracts automatically.
How to run each
Paper Search As a local MCP server: Docker image
claude mcp add --transport stdio paper-search -- docker run -i --rm mcp/paper-searchfirecrawl As a Claude Code plugin
/plugin install firecrawl@claude-plugins-officialCommands built only from what the marketplaces declare; the full set for every client is on each card.
Tools each declares
The marketplaces of firecrawl publish no list of tools, so we do not compare tools.
Settings each asks for
Neither one's marketplaces publish the settings it asks for.
What it can do: Paper Search · What it can do: firecrawl · Compare two other plugins
Data comes from the Docker MCP Catalog (desktop.docker.com/mcp/catalog) and Docker Hub. Data comes from the public marketplace file https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-official/blob/HEAD/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json. Data comes from the public marketplace file https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-community/blob/HEAD/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json. Data comes from public marketplace files in GitHub repositories of their authors. Figures come from our own regular passes over the marketplaces, last read on . We publish no contact details for plugin publishers.