head to head · open source
Crawl4AI vs browser-search
Crawl4AI has 83,782 GitHub stars, 8,664 forks, 188 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. browser-search has 524 stars, 39 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. Crawl4AI leads on adoption by 15,889% (83,782 vs 524 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 7%. Crawl4AI 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
| Crawl4AI | browser-search | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 84K | ★ 524 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 39 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Crawl4AI if
- You weight community size — 84K 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 is an open source web crawler and scraper designed to prepare website content for large language model (LLM) workflows. It lives in the Python ecosystem and targets data extraction for RAG, agents, and AI pipelines. Unlike many tools that require API keys or paid subscriptions, Crawl4AI provides direct, self hosted access to web content with output structured specifically for LLM consumption.
read the full Crawl4AI overview →
About browser-search
browser search is an MIT licensed JavaScript skill for AI agents — OpenCode, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw and others — that gives an agent a self hosted search, browse and anti bot bypass pipeline built on SearXNG, Camofox and CloakBrowser, aimed at developers who want live web answers without buying API keys or paying per query.
read the full browser-search overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crawl4AI or browser-search more popular?
Crawl4AI has 83,782 GitHub stars and browser-search has 524. 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 (83,782 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.