head to head · open source
changedetection.io vs reader
changedetection.io has 35,461 GitHub stars, 2,194 forks, 385 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reader has 561 stars, 41 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 28 days ago. changedetection.io leads on adoption by 6,221% (35,461 vs 561 stars). changedetection.io is written in Python under Apache-2.0; reader is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. changedetection.io has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, reader 7%. 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 | reader | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 561 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 41 |
| 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 reader if
- You want the reader feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and reader 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 reader
Reader Open source web infrastructure for AI. Access the web without the complexity. Docs · Examples · Discord The Problem Building agents that need web access is frustrating. You piece together Puppeteer, add stealth plugins, fight Cloudflare, manage proxies and it still breaks in production. Because production grade web scraping isn't about rendering a page and converting HTML to markdown. It's about everything underneath: I built Reader , a production grade web scraping engine on top of Playwright, with stealth and anti detection built in from the ground up. The Solution Three primitives. That's it. All the…
read the full reader overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is changedetection.io or reader more popular?
changedetection.io has 35,461 GitHub stars and reader has 561. changedetection.io has the larger community by that measure.
Are changedetection.io and reader free?
Both are open source. changedetection.io is licensed under Apache-2.0 and reader under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between changedetection.io and reader?
changedetection.io is written in Python and reader 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, changedetection.io or reader?
Choose changedetection.io if you want the larger community (35,461 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose reader if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.