head to head · open source
colly vs Steel
colly has 25,527 GitHub stars, 1,862 forks, 195 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Steel has 7,668 stars, 982 forks, 68 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. colly leads on adoption by 233% (25,527 vs 7,668 stars). colly is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Steel is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. colly has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Steel 13%. Steel 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
| colly | Steel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 7.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 982 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick colly if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Steel if
- You want the Steel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Steel fits your workflow better
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 →
About Steel
Steel is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed browser API written in TypeScript that gives AI agents and applications cloud browser sessions, so teams can automate the web without building browser infrastructure from scratch.
read the full Steel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is colly or Steel more popular?
colly has 25,527 GitHub stars and Steel has 7,668. colly has the larger community by that measure.
Are colly and Steel free?
Both are open source. colly is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Steel under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between colly and Steel?
colly is written in Go and Steel 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, colly or Steel?
Choose colly if you want the larger community (25,527 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Steel if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.