head to head · open source
Crawl4AI vs single-file-cli
Crawl4AI has 86,783 GitHub stars, 9,043 forks, 188 open issues and last shipped yesterday. single-file-cli has 1,679 stars, 147 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Crawl4AI leads on adoption by 5,069% (86,783 vs 1,679 stars). Crawl4AI is written in Python under Apache-2.0; single-file-cli is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0. Crawl4AI has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, single-file-cli 9%. single-file-cli 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 | single-file-cli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 87K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 147 |
| 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 single-file-cli if
- You want the single-file-cli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and single-file-cli 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 single-file-cli
SingleFile CLI (Command Line Interface) Introduction SingleFile can be launched from the command line by running it into a (headless) browser. It runs through Deno as a standalone script injected into the web page via the Chrome DevTools Protocol, or via WebDriver BiDi when using Firefox, instead of being embedded into a WebExtension. Installation SingleFile can be run without installing it, just download the executable file and save it in the directory of your choice here: Make sure Chrome or a Chromium based browser is installed in the default folder. Otherwise you might need to set the browser executable path…
read the full single-file-cli overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crawl4AI or single-file-cli more popular?
Crawl4AI has 86,783 GitHub stars and single-file-cli has 1,679. Crawl4AI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Crawl4AI and single-file-cli free?
Both are open source. Crawl4AI is licensed under Apache-2.0 and single-file-cli under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Crawl4AI and single-file-cli?
Crawl4AI is written in Python and single-file-cli 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 single-file-cli?
Choose Crawl4AI if you want the larger community (86,783 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose single-file-cli if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.