head to head · open source
Scrapegraph-ai vs colly
Scrapegraph-ai has 31,056 GitHub stars, 3,126 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. colly has 25,520 stars, 1,862 forks, 195 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Scrapegraph-ai leads on adoption by 22% (31,056 vs 25,520 stars). Scrapegraph-ai is written in Python under MIT; colly is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Scrapegraph-ai has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, colly 7%. colly was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (crawler, 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
| Scrapegraph-ai | colly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 1.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Scrapegraph-ai if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick colly if
- You want the colly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and colly fits your workflow better
About Scrapegraph-ai
ScrapeGraphAI is an open source Python library for web scraping that combines large language models with direct graph logic to build scraping pipelines. It lives in the Python ecosystem and is distributed under the MIT license, with the reference package published on PyPI as scrapegraphai . Rather than requiring a developer to hand write selectors for every page, the library accepts a natural language prompt describing the information to extract, alongside a source URL or local document, and returns structured results. It is designed around the idea expressed in its own tagline, "You Only Scrape Once," meaning th…
read the full Scrapegraph-ai overview →
About colly
Colly is an open source scraping and crawling framework written in Go, distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Go ecosystem and is consumed as a library rather than a standalone application: the README describes it as providing a clean interface for writing any kind of crawler, scraper, or spider, and the project's own topics list it as a crawler, crawling framework, scraper, scraping tool, and spider. The repository has been public for roughly nine years, carries 25,516 stars and 1,862 forks, and its most recent push was on 2 September 2026. Documentation and examples are hosted at go colly.org…
read the full colly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Scrapegraph-ai or colly more popular?
Scrapegraph-ai has 31,056 GitHub stars and colly has 25,520. Scrapegraph-ai has the larger community by that measure.
Are Scrapegraph-ai and colly free?
Both are open source. Scrapegraph-ai is licensed under MIT and colly under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Scrapegraph-ai and colly?
Scrapegraph-ai is written in Python and colly 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, Scrapegraph-ai or colly?
Choose Scrapegraph-ai if you want the larger community (31,056 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose colly if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.