head to head · open source
ArchiveBox vs colly
ArchiveBox has 28,553 GitHub stars, 1,604 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. colly has 25,528 stars, 1,863 forks, 195 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. ArchiveBox leads on adoption by 12% (28,553 vs 25,528 stars). ArchiveBox is written in Python under MIT; colly is written in Go under Apache-2.0. ArchiveBox has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, colly 7%. ArchiveBox was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| ArchiveBox | colly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ArchiveBox if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick colly if
- You want the colly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and colly fits your workflow better
About ArchiveBox
ArchiveBox is an open source, self hosted web archiving application that lets individuals and organizations preserve public and private web content in durable, readable formats while keeping control of their own data.
read the full ArchiveBox overview →
About colly
Colly is an open source scraping and crawling framework written in Go, distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Go ecosystem and is consumed as a library rather than a standalone application: the README describes it as providing a clean interface for writing any kind of crawler, scraper, or spider, and the project's own topics list it as a crawler, crawling framework, scraper, scraping tool, and spider. The repository has been public for roughly nine years, carries 25,516 stars and 1,862 forks, and its most recent push was on 2 September 2026. Documentation and examples are hosted at go colly.org…
read the full colly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ArchiveBox or colly more popular?
ArchiveBox has 28,553 GitHub stars and colly has 25,528. ArchiveBox has the larger community by that measure.
Are ArchiveBox and colly free?
Both are open source. ArchiveBox is licensed under MIT and colly under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ArchiveBox and colly?
ArchiveBox is written in Python and colly in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, ArchiveBox or colly?
Choose ArchiveBox if you want the larger community (28,553 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose colly if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.