head to head · open source
ArchiveBox vs katana
ArchiveBox has 28,553 GitHub stars, 1,604 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. katana has 17,539 stars, 1,185 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. ArchiveBox leads on adoption by 63% (28,553 vs 17,539 stars). ArchiveBox is written in Python under MIT; katana is written in Go under MIT. ArchiveBox has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, katana 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 | katana | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 18K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 katana if
- You want the katana feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and katana 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 katana
Katana is an open source, MIT licensed crawling and spidering framework written in Go, built for security engineers and automation pipelines that need to map web applications at scale rather than explore them by hand.
read the full katana overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ArchiveBox or katana more popular?
ArchiveBox has 28,553 GitHub stars and katana has 17,539. ArchiveBox has the larger community by that measure.
Are ArchiveBox and katana free?
Both are open source. ArchiveBox is licensed under MIT and katana under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ArchiveBox and katana?
ArchiveBox is written in Python and katana 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 katana?
Choose ArchiveBox if you want the larger community (28,553 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose katana if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.