head to head · open source
Crawl4AI vs patchright
Crawl4AI has 83,782 GitHub stars, 8,664 forks, 188 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. patchright has 4,619 stars, 227 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Crawl4AI leads on adoption by 1,714% (83,782 vs 4,619 stars). Crawl4AI is written in Python under Apache-2.0; patchright is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Crawl4AI has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, patchright 5%. 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 | patchright | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 84K | ★ 4.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 227 |
| 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 patchright if
- You want the patchright 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 patchright 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 patchright
Patchright is a patched, undetected version of the Playwright testing and automation framework, shipped as a driver and aimed at developers who need browser automation that anti bot systems do not flag.
read the full patchright overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crawl4AI or patchright more popular?
Crawl4AI has 83,782 GitHub stars and patchright has 4,619. Crawl4AI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Crawl4AI and patchright free?
Both are open source. Crawl4AI is licensed under Apache-2.0 and patchright under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Crawl4AI and patchright?
Crawl4AI is written in Python and patchright 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, Crawl4AI or patchright?
Choose Crawl4AI if you want the larger community (83,782 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose patchright if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.