head to head · open source
CloakBrowser vs parsera
CloakBrowser has 32,693 GitHub stars, 2,719 forks, 164 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. parsera has 1,370 stars, 80 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. CloakBrowser leads on adoption by 2,286% (32,693 vs 1,370 stars). CloakBrowser is written in Python under MIT; parsera is written in Python under GPL-2.0. CloakBrowser has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, parsera 6%. CloakBrowser was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (playwright), 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
| CloakBrowser | parsera | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2025-12-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 80 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick CloakBrowser if
- You weight community size — 33K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick parsera if
- You want the parsera feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and parsera fits your workflow better
About CloakBrowser
Stealth Chromium that passes every bot detection test. Not a patched config. Not a JS injection. A real Chromium binary with fingerprints modified at the C++ source level. Antibot systems score it as a normal browser — because it is a normal browser. Cloudflare Turnstile — 3 live tests passing (headed mode, macOS) Drop in Playwright/Puppeteer replacement for Python and JavaScript. Same API, same code — just swap the import. 3 lines of code, 30 seconds to unblock. 87 source level C++ patches — canvas, WebGL, audio, fonts, GPU, screen, WebRTC, network timing, automation signals, CDP input behavior humanize=True —…
read the full CloakBrowser overview →
About parsera
📦 Parsera Lightweight Python library for scraping websites with LLMs. You can test it on Parsera website. Why Parsera? Because it's simple and lightweight. With interface as simple as: Table of Contents Installation Documentation Basic usage Running with Jupyter Notebook Running with CLI Running in Docker Installation Documentation Check out documentation to learn more about other features, like running custom models and playwright scripts. Basic usage First, set up PARSERA API KEY env variable (If you want to run custom LLM see Custom Models). You can do this from python with: Next, you can run a basic…
read the full parsera overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is CloakBrowser or parsera more popular?
CloakBrowser has 32,693 GitHub stars and parsera has 1,370. CloakBrowser has the larger community by that measure.
Are CloakBrowser and parsera free?
Both are open source. CloakBrowser is licensed under MIT and parsera under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between CloakBrowser and parsera?
CloakBrowser is written in Python and parsera 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, CloakBrowser or parsera?
Choose CloakBrowser if you want the larger community (32,693 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose parsera if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.