url-to-md

What is url-to-md?

url-to-md, also written url2md, turns a web page into clean markdown for LLM context windows. It fetches the URL, applies the readability extraction used by Firefox Reader View, converts the HTML with html2text, removes empty elements and collapses whitespace. The JSON response includes the title, the markdown, character and line counts, a token estimate based on characters divided by four, and a flag showing whether the output was truncated. Use it from the url2md.com web page by pasting a link, or call the GET and POST API, which needs no key. The README sets a rate limit of 30 requests per hour per IP address and says there is no tracking or account. You can also run it yourself with Python or Docker. The project is MIT licensed and free.

Use cases

• Turn a doc page into markdown for an LLM
• Strip ads and cookie banners from articles
• Estimate tokens before pasting content
• Feed web content to a coding assistant
• Convert pages from scripts through an API

Who it's for

• Developers
• AI coding tool users
• Prompt engineers

Why use url-to-md

• Pasting raw HTML into an assistant wastes context; the markdown output keeps just the article content.
• The token estimate shows how much room a page will take before you paste it.
• There is no signup or API key, so a single curl command works.
• You can self-host it with Docker if the hourly limit is too low.

url-to-md features

• Converts any URL to markdown
• Readability-based main-content extraction
• Removes navigation, ads and cookie banners
• Token count estimate in the response
• GET and POST JSON API without a key
• Web page for pasting a URL
• Run locally with Python or Docker
• MIT license

How to get started with url-to-md

1. Open url2md.com and paste a page URL, or send a GET or POST request to /api/convert.
2. The service fetches the page and runs readability extraction.
3. It converts the HTML to markdown and cleans up empty elements and whitespace.
4. The response returns the markdown with character count, line count and token estimate.
5. Copy the markdown into your assistant, or run the project locally for higher volume.

url-to-md limitations

• Hosted API is limited to 30 requests per hour per IP
• Token counts are rough estimates based on character length

url-to-md pricing

url-to-md is open source, so you can use and self-host it for free.

Prices can change and may vary by country or exclude tax. Check the official pricing page.

url-to-md alternatives

The main url-to-md alternatives listed on Debuly are Firecrawl, agent-browser, Blackbox AI, Docling, Expand and Hyperbrowser. The table compares pricing and platforms; order is A–Z.

1. 

   agent-browser

   Native Rust command-line browser automation tool built for AI agents, with compact accessibility snapshots and 50+ commands.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   Open sourceVisit agent-browser (official site)
2. 

   Blackbox AI

   Inference platform with one OpenAI-compatible endpoint for 300+ open and closed models, encrypted connections, and dedicated enterprise deployments.

   Developer platformsCodingAutomation and agents
   Contact salesVisit Blackbox AI (official site)
3. 

   Docling

   Open-source document parsing library that converts PDF, Office files, audio and more into Markdown or JSON for generative AI.

   Developer platformsProductivityAutomation and agents
   Open sourceVisit Docling (official site)
4. 

   Expand

   Web data API that fetches pages, files and videos as agent-ready Markdown, hidden JSON and citable snapshots

   Developer platformsResearch and searchAutomation and agents
   FreemiumVisit Expand (official site)
5. 

   Firecrawl

   Web data API for AI agents: search, scrape, crawl and interact with websites and get clean content back, with a free tier.

   Developer platformsResearch and searchAutomation and agents
   FreemiumVisit Firecrawl (official site)
6. 

   Hyperbrowser

   Cloud infrastructure that gives AI agents hosted Chrome sessions, isolated sandboxes, and web fetch, crawl and search APIs.

   Developer platformsAutomation and agentsCoding
   FreemiumVisit Hyperbrowser (official site)

url-to-md FAQ

Sources & verification

Facts on this page come from the official sources below, each with the date we read it. Written by Debuly; the vendor did not review this page.

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