What is stateful web scraping?
Stateful web scraping preserves browser state (cookies, localStorage, authentication tokens) across multiple requests or scrape sessions. Without state, each request starts fresh: logins are lost, shopping carts reset, and any page that depends on prior interaction is unreachable. Stateful scraping solves this by persisting a browser profile between calls, so subsequent requests continue from where the last one left off rather than re-authenticating or replaying prior steps.
| Factor | Stateless scraping | Stateful scraping |
|---|---|---|
| Auth handling | Re-authenticate every request | Log in once, persist across sessions |
| Cookies | Discarded after each request | Retained in profile |
| localStorage | Cleared on session end | Preserved between calls |
| Multi-step workflows | State lost between steps | Continuous context |
| Setup complexity | Simple | Requires profile management |
Stateful scraping is necessary for authenticated content (dashboards, account pages, paywalled data), multi-step workflows (filling a form across several pages), and recurring scrapes where re-authenticating on every run is impractical. It also reduces the risk of triggering bot detection from repeated logins. The main trade-off is profile management overhead: profiles need to be created, stored securely, and invalidated when credentials change or sessions expire.
Firecrawl's /interact endpoint supports named browser profiles that persist cookies, localStorage, and session tokens between scrapes. Log in once using a named profile, and all subsequent scrapes on that site start already authenticated, with no repeated login steps. For a full guide to the Firecrawl interact endpoint — including scraping-for-agents patterns, session management, and browser automation API examples — see the dedicated guide.