meta-research vs firecrawl
meta-research is a plugin bundle for AI coding tools published by AmberLJC. Marketplaces we read that list it: 1 (Community GitHub marketplaces). 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 2026-10-16. 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 |  firecrawl | |
|---|---|---|
| Community marketplace amberljc/meta-research | Listed Version: 1.0.0 Forks (GitHub): 0 Stars (GitHub): 11 Not marked · First seen |
Not listed |
| Claude Code: claude-plugins-official | Not listed | Listed Version: 1.0.9 Forks (GitHub): 34 Stars (GitHub): 241 Not marked · First seen |
| Claude Code: claude-plugins-community | Not listed | Listed Version: 1.0.9 Forks (GitHub): 34 Stars (GitHub): 241 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 | meta-research | firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplaces that list it (differs) | 1 (worse) | 3 (better) |
| Stars (GitHub) (differs) | 11 (worse) | 241 (better) |
| Forks (GitHub) (differs) | 0 (worse) | 34 (better) |
| Last release (differs) | Not published | 2026-10-15 |
| Where it runs (differs) | Installs as a plugin bundle | Remote server (mcp.firecrawl.dev/v2/mcp-search) |
| Transport (differs) | Not stated | Streamable HTTP |
| Tools it declares | Not published | Not published |
| Environment variables it asks for | Not published | Not published |
| Parts of the bundle (differs) | Not published | 13 |
| Licence (differs) | MIT | Not stated |
| Repository (differs) | github.com/amberljc/meta-research | github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl-claude-plugin |
| Changes in the last 7 days (differs) | 2 | 6 |
| First seen (differs) | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-11 |
| Endpoint at the last check (differs) | no remote endpoint we check | not checked yet |
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
meta-research
Autonomous research workflow agent for AI and scientific research. Guides the full research lifecycle — brainstorming, literature review, experiment design, analysis, and writing.
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
meta-research As a Claude Code plugin
/plugin marketplace add amberljc/meta-research
/plugin install meta-research@meta-researchfirecrawl 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
Neither one's marketplaces publish a list of tools, so there is nothing to compare.
Settings each asks for
Neither one's marketplaces publish the settings it asks for.
What it can do: meta-research · What it can do: firecrawl · Compare two other plugins
Data comes from public marketplace files in GitHub repositories of their authors. 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. Figures come from our own regular passes over the marketplaces, last read on . We publish no contact details for plugin publishers.