head to head · open source
Crawl4AI vs ArrowDL
Crawl4AI has 86,783 GitHub stars, 9,043 forks, 188 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ArrowDL has 853 stars, 42 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Crawl4AI leads on adoption by 10,074% (86,783 vs 853 stars). Crawl4AI is written in Python under Apache-2.0; ArrowDL is written in C++ under LGPL-3.0. Crawl4AI has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ArrowDL 5%. Crawl4AI was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (crawler), 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
| Crawl4AI | ArrowDL | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 87K | ★ 853 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 42 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Crawl4AI if
- You weight community size — 87K 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 ArrowDL if
- You want the ArrowDL feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and ArrowDL fits your workflow better
About Crawl4AI
🚀🤖 Crawl4AI: Open source LLM Friendly Web Crawler & Scraper. 🚀 Crawl4AI Cloud API — Closed Beta (Launching Soon) Reliable, large scale web extraction, now built to be drastically more cost effective than any of the existing solutions. 👉 Apply here for early access We’ll be onboarding in phases and working closely with early users. Limited slots. Crawl4AI turns the web into clean, LLM ready Markdown for RAG, agents, and data pipelines. Fast, controllable, battle tested by a 50k+ star community. ✨ Check out latest update v0.9.3 ✨ New in v0.9.3 : Security release. Closes five coordinated disclosure advisories…
read the full Crawl4AI overview →
About ArrowDL
ArrowDL (Arrow Downloader) Overview ArrowDL is a standalone download manager for Windows, MacOS and Linux. It aims to work with latest versions of Mozilla Firefox (powered by WebExtensions ), and other web browsers (Chrome, Edge, Safari...). Development ArrowDL is written in C++ and based on the Qt framework. Screenshots Overview Video Streams Webpage Content Batch of Files More screenshots on the Gallery page. Installation Go to Download page to install the application for your operating system. Rem: Native Client is an alternative to ArrowDL . Click here for more information. On Windows, you can also use the…
read the full ArrowDL overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crawl4AI or ArrowDL more popular?
Crawl4AI has 86,783 GitHub stars and ArrowDL has 853. Crawl4AI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Crawl4AI and ArrowDL free?
Both are open source. Crawl4AI is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ArrowDL under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Crawl4AI and ArrowDL?
Crawl4AI is written in Python and ArrowDL in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Crawl4AI or ArrowDL?
Choose Crawl4AI if you want the larger community (86,783 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ArrowDL if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.