head to head · open source
Browser Use vs trawl
Browser Use has 115,379 GitHub stars, 12,695 forks, 421 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. trawl has 824 stars, 45 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Browser Use leads on adoption by 13,902% (115,379 vs 824 stars). Browser Use is written in Python under MIT; trawl is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Browser Use has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, trawl 5%. Browser Use 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
| Browser Use | trawl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 115K | ★ 824 |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 45 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Browser Use if
- You weight community size — 115K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick trawl if
- You want the trawl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and trawl fits your workflow better
About Browser Use
Browser Use is an open source Python library and hosted platform that enables AI agents to control web browsers programmatically. It lives in the AI agent and browser automation ecosystem, built on Playwright and designed to let LLMs interact with websites as a human would—clicking, filling forms, solving CAPTCHAs, and navigating dynamic interfaces. The project provides three deployment paths: a fully hosted cloud service, a command line interface for existing agents, and a local Python library for custom integrations.
read the full Browser Use overview →
About trawl
TRAWL is a self hosted, AGPL 3.0 web scraping engine written in TypeScript that solves JavaScript challenges and CAPTCHAs on behalf of other applications, and it is built for self hosters who run scraping pipelines, media automation, or agent tooling on their own hardware.
read the full trawl overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Browser Use or trawl more popular?
Browser Use has 115,379 GitHub stars and trawl has 824. Browser Use has the larger community by that measure.
Are Browser Use and trawl free?
Both are open source. Browser Use is licensed under MIT and trawl under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Browser Use and trawl?
Browser Use is written in Python and trawl in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Browser Use or trawl?
Choose Browser Use if you want the larger community (115,379 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose trawl if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.