head to head · open source
Crawl4AI vs scrape-it
Crawl4AI has 83,782 GitHub stars, 8,664 forks, 188 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. scrape-it has 4,070 stars, 217 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Crawl4AI leads on adoption by 1,959% (83,782 vs 4,070 stars). Crawl4AI is written in Python under Apache-2.0; scrape-it is written in JavaScript under MIT. Crawl4AI has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, scrape-it 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 | scrape-it | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 84K | ★ 4.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-07-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 217 |
| 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 scrape-it if
- You want the scrape-it feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and scrape-it 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 scrape-it
scrape it [![Support me on Patreon][badge patreon]][patreon] [![Buy me a book][badge amazon]][amazon] [![PayPal][badge paypal donate]][paypal donations] A Node.js scraper for humans. Sponsored with :heart: by: SerpApi.com Talordata SERP API: Real time, accurate search data to power every decision Rapidproxy——Power your data collection and automation with 90M+ reliable residential proxies built for scale. :cloud: Installation :bulb: ProTip : You can install the cli version of this module by running npm install global scrape it cli (or yarn global add scrape it cli ). FAQ Here are some frequent questions and their …
read the full scrape-it overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crawl4AI or scrape-it more popular?
Crawl4AI has 83,782 GitHub stars and scrape-it has 4,070. Crawl4AI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Crawl4AI and scrape-it free?
Both are open source. Crawl4AI is licensed under Apache-2.0 and scrape-it under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Crawl4AI and scrape-it?
Crawl4AI is written in Python and scrape-it 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 scrape-it?
Choose Crawl4AI if you want the larger community (83,782 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose scrape-it if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.