head to head · open source
changedetection.io vs trawl
changedetection.io has 34,312 GitHub stars, 2,064 forks, 385 open issues and last shipped yesterday. trawl has 821 stars, 45 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. changedetection.io leads on adoption by 4,079% (34,312 vs 821 stars). changedetection.io is written in Python under Apache-2.0; trawl is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. changedetection.io has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, trawl 5%. changedetection.io was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (self-hosted, web-scraping), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | trawl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 821 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 45 |
| 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 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 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 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 changedetection.io or trawl more popular?
changedetection.io has 34,312 GitHub stars and trawl has 821. changedetection.io has the larger community by that measure.
Are changedetection.io and trawl free?
Both are open source. changedetection.io is licensed under Apache-2.0 and trawl under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between changedetection.io and trawl?
changedetection.io 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, changedetection.io or trawl?
Choose changedetection.io if you want the larger community (34,312 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose trawl if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.