head to head · open source
changedetection.io vs grab
changedetection.io has 35,461 GitHub stars, 2,194 forks, 385 open issues and last shipped yesterday. grab has 2,462 stars, 271 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. changedetection.io leads on adoption by 1,340% (35,461 vs 2,462 stars). changedetection.io is written in Python under Apache-2.0; grab is written in Python under MIT. changedetection.io has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, grab 11%. changedetection.io 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
| changedetection.io | grab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 271 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick changedetection.io if
- You weight community size — 35K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick grab if
- You want the grab feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and grab fits your workflow better
About changedetection.io
Detect Website Changes Automatically — Monitor Web Page Changes in Real Time Monitor websites for updates — get notified via Discord, Email, Slack, Telegram, Webhook and many more. Detect web page content changes and get instant alerts. Ideal for monitoring price changes, content edits, conditional changes and more. [![Release Version][release shield]][release link] [![Docker Pulls][docker pulls]][docker link] [![License][license shield]](LICENSE.md) Get started with website page change monitoring straight away. Don't have time? Try our $8.99/month subscription, use our proxies and support! , half the price of…
read the full changedetection.io overview →
About grab
Grab Update (2025 year) Since 2018 (which is the year of most recent Grab release) I have tried to do large refactoring of code base of Grab library. Which ended up with semi working product which nobody uses, including me. I have decided to reset all project files to the state of most recent pypi release 0.6.41 dated by june 2018. At least, now the code base corresponds to live version of the product which is being used by some people, according to pypi stats. I've updated Grab code base and code base of its dependencies to be compatible with Python 2.7 and Python 3.13 (and, hopefully, all py versions between…
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Frequently asked questions
Is changedetection.io or grab more popular?
changedetection.io has 35,461 GitHub stars and grab has 2,462. changedetection.io has the larger community by that measure.
Are changedetection.io and grab free?
Both are open source. changedetection.io is licensed under Apache-2.0 and grab under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between changedetection.io and grab?
changedetection.io is written in Python and grab in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, changedetection.io or grab?
Choose changedetection.io if you want the larger community (35,461 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose grab if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.