head to head · open source
Crawl4AI vs browser-search
Crawl4AI has 86,783 GitHub stars, 9,043 forks, 188 open issues and last shipped yesterday. browser-search has 539 stars, 42 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Crawl4AI leads on adoption by 16,001% (86,783 vs 539 stars). Crawl4AI is written in Python under Apache-2.0; browser-search is written in JavaScript under MIT. Crawl4AI has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, browser-search 8%. Crawl4AI was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai), 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 | browser-search | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 87K | ★ 539 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-22 |
| 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 browser-search if
- You want the browser-search feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and browser-search 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 browser-search
browser search =20" A skill for AI agents. OpenCode, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw and beyond. Search the web with SearXNG, browse with Camofox, bypass protections with CloakBrowser. Anti hallucination by design. All self hosted, free, unlimited. English · 简体中文 · Español · 日本語 · 한국어 · Português (Brasil) · Français · Deutsch · Русский · العربية · हिन्दी · Italiano Why it exists Today an AI agent browsing the web is like a thief in a balaclava sneaking around a police academy. The site protections block it, challenge it, reject it. 👮 browser search flips the situation: your agent stops being the thief and becomes…
read the full browser-search overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crawl4AI or browser-search more popular?
Crawl4AI has 86,783 GitHub stars and browser-search has 539. Crawl4AI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Crawl4AI and browser-search free?
Both are open source. Crawl4AI is licensed under Apache-2.0 and browser-search under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Crawl4AI and browser-search?
Crawl4AI is written in Python and browser-search in JavaScript. 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 browser-search?
Choose Crawl4AI if you want the larger community (86,783 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose browser-search if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.