head to head · open source
changedetection.io vs xxl-crawler
changedetection.io has 34,312 GitHub stars, 2,064 forks, 385 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xxl-crawler has 758 stars, 318 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. changedetection.io leads on adoption by 4,427% (34,312 vs 758 stars). changedetection.io is written in Python under Apache-2.0; xxl-crawler is written in Java under Apache-2.0. changedetection.io has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, xxl-crawler 42%. 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 | xxl-crawler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 758 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-08-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 318 |
| 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 xxl-crawler if
- You want the xxl-crawler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and xxl-crawler 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 xxl-crawler
XXL CRAWLER is a lightweight, open source Java web crawler framework that lets a developer start a multi threaded crawler with a single line of code and map collected page data into Java objects through annotations, built for Java teams that need to gather web data without adopting a heavyweight scraping platform.
read the full xxl-crawler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is changedetection.io or xxl-crawler more popular?
changedetection.io has 34,312 GitHub stars and xxl-crawler has 758. changedetection.io has the larger community by that measure.
Are changedetection.io and xxl-crawler free?
Both are open source. changedetection.io is licensed under Apache-2.0 and xxl-crawler under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between changedetection.io and xxl-crawler?
changedetection.io is written in Python and xxl-crawler in Java. 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 xxl-crawler?
Choose changedetection.io if you want the larger community (34,312 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose xxl-crawler if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.