head to head · open source
dots vs xxl-crawler
dots has 32,357 GitHub stars, 4,739 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. xxl-crawler has 756 stars, 316 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. dots leads on adoption by 4,180% (32,357 vs 756 stars). dots is written in TypeScript under MIT; xxl-crawler is written in Java under Apache-2.0. dots has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, xxl-crawler 42%. dots 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
| dots | xxl-crawler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 756 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-31 | 2026-08-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.7K | ⑂ 316 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick dots if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick xxl-crawler if
- You want the xxl-crawler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and xxl-crawler fits your workflow better
About dots
dots Every AI agent is a model and a browser. You can swap the model with one flag. The browser is what the website sees. Windows, in PowerShell: Linux: Then open The conversation on the left, the browser on the right, live. It all comes down to the browser When a web agent fails, the model is rarely why. The page never loaded, a challenge appeared, the login expired, the click did not land. All of that happens in the browser, before the model gets to think. So dots is built around one: A real Firefox engine, patched in C++. The fingerprint is decided inside the engine, not painted over with JavaScript that a…
About xxl-crawler
XXL CRAWLER XXL CRAWLER, a lightweight web crawler framework. Home Page Introduction XXL CRAWLER is a lightweight web crawler framework. A line of code to develop a multi threaded crawler, fully annotated way to collect page data to Java objects, with "multi threaded, fully annotated, JS rendering, proxy, distributed extension" and other features; XXL CRAWLER 是一个轻量级Java爬虫框架。一行代码开发一个多线程爬虫，全注解方式采集页面数据至Java对象，拥有"多线程、全注解、JS渲染、代理、分布式扩展"等特性； Documentation 中文文档 Features 1、简洁：API直观简洁，可快速上手； 2、轻量级：底层实现仅强依赖jsoup，简洁高效； 3、模块化：模块化的结构设计，可轻松扩展； 4、全注解：支持通过注解提取页面数据，高效映射页面数据到PageVO对象，底层自动完成PageVO对象的数据抽取和封装返回；单个页面支持抽取一个或多个PageVO；…
read the full xxl-crawler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is dots or xxl-crawler more popular?
dots has 32,357 GitHub stars and xxl-crawler has 756. dots has the larger community by that measure.
Are dots and xxl-crawler free?
Both are open source. dots is licensed under MIT and xxl-crawler under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between dots and xxl-crawler?
dots is written in TypeScript and xxl-crawler in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, dots or xxl-crawler?
Choose dots if you want the larger community (32,357 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xxl-crawler if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.