head to head · open source
changedetection.io vs rod
changedetection.io has 34,295 GitHub stars, 2,063 forks, 385 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rod has 7,104 stars, 485 forks, 212 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. changedetection.io leads on adoption by 383% (34,295 vs 7,104 stars). changedetection.io is written in Python under Apache-2.0; rod is written in Go under MIT. changedetection.io has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, rod 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 | rod | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 7.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 485 |
| 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 rod if
- You want the rod feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and rod 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 rod
Rod is a high level driver for the Chrome DevTools Protocol, written in Go and released under the MIT license. It lives in the Go ecosystem and is published as the module github.com/go rod/rod , with documentation hosted at go rod.github.io and an API reference on pkg.go.dev. The project is designed for web automation and scraping, and it deliberately spans two levels of use: senior developers can work with the low level packages and functions to customize the driver or build their own version of it, while the high level functions serve as examples that produce a default, ready to use build.
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Frequently asked questions
Is changedetection.io or rod more popular?
changedetection.io has 34,295 GitHub stars and rod has 7,104. changedetection.io has the larger community by that measure.
Are changedetection.io and rod free?
Both are open source. changedetection.io is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rod under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between changedetection.io and rod?
changedetection.io is written in Python and rod 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, changedetection.io or rod?
Choose changedetection.io if you want the larger community (34,295 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rod if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.