head to head · open source
CloakBrowser vs PHPScraper
CloakBrowser has 31,578 GitHub stars, 2,615 forks, 227 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. PHPScraper has 588 stars, 75 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. CloakBrowser leads on adoption by 5,270% (31,578 vs 588 stars). CloakBrowser is written in Python under MIT; PHPScraper is written in PHP under GPL-3.0. CloakBrowser has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, PHPScraper 13%. CloakBrowser was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chromium), 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 | PHPScraper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 588 |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 75 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick CloakBrowser if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick PHPScraper if
- You want the PHPScraper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and PHPScraper fits your workflow better
About CloakBrowser
CloakBrowser is a stealth Chromium build for Python and JavaScript teams that need browser automation to survive bot detection systems, aimed at scraping and AI agent engineers who want to replace Playwright or Puppeteer without rewriting their code.
read the full CloakBrowser overview →
About PHPScraper
PHPScraper is a GPL 3.0 PHP web utility for developers who need to extract structured information such as titles, metadata, social tags, headings, lists, images, links, keywords, and downloadable assets from websites without writing selectors or manually preparing the extracted data.
read the full PHPScraper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is CloakBrowser or PHPScraper more popular?
CloakBrowser has 31,578 GitHub stars and PHPScraper has 588. CloakBrowser has the larger community by that measure.
Are CloakBrowser and PHPScraper free?
Both are open source. CloakBrowser is licensed under MIT and PHPScraper under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between CloakBrowser and PHPScraper?
CloakBrowser is written in Python and PHPScraper in PHP. 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 PHPScraper?
Choose CloakBrowser if you want the larger community (31,578 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose PHPScraper if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.