head to head · open source
changedetection.io vs grab
changedetection.io has 34,312 GitHub stars, 2,064 forks, 385 open issues and last shipped today. grab has 2,461 stars, 274 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. changedetection.io leads on adoption by 1,294% (34,312 vs 2,461 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 | ★ 34K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2025-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 274 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick changedetection.io if
- You weight community size — 34K 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
changedetection.io is an open source website change detection and web page monitoring tool written in Python and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It watches URLs, detects when their content changes, and sends alerts through channels such as Discord, Email, Slack, Telegram, and Webhook. The project lives in the Data & Analytics / Data Extraction & Web Scraping ecosystem, carries more than 34,000 stars and 2,000 forks on GitHub, and has been developed for roughly six years. It is designed to be self hosted, and the same codebase also backs a hosted subscription service offered by the maintainers.…
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 th…
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Frequently asked questions
Is changedetection.io or grab more popular?
changedetection.io has 34,312 GitHub stars and grab has 2,461. 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 (34,312 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose grab if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.