head to head · open source
EasySpider vs basketball_reference_web_scraper
EasySpider has 44,565 GitHub stars, 5,387 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. basketball_reference_web_scraper has 556 stars, 133 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. EasySpider leads on adoption by 7,915% (44,565 vs 556 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; basketball_reference_web_scraper is written in HTML under MIT. EasySpider has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, basketball_reference_web_scraper 24%. basketball_reference_web_scraper 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
| EasySpider | basketball_reference_web_scraper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 556 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 133 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick EasySpider if
- You weight community size — 45K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick basketball_reference_web_scraper if
- You want the basketball_reference_web_scraper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and basketball_reference_web_scraper fits your workflow better
About EasySpider
EasySpider is a visual, code free web crawler and browser automation tool distributed on GitHub under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is written in JavaScript as a graphical application and lives in the web scraping and data extraction ecosystem, sitting alongside browser automation testing tools. It also carries the alias ServiceWrapper, described as an intelligent service encapsulation system for web applications. Development spans roughly six years, with the latest push recorded in September 2026.
read the full EasySpider overview →
About basketball_reference_web_scraper
basketball reference web scraper is a Python package distributed on PyPI that provides an API style interface over Basketball Reference's NBA statistics, built for developers and analysts who want NBA numbers available inside their own Python code rather than copied out of web pages by hand.
read the full basketball_reference_web_scraper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is EasySpider or basketball_reference_web_scraper more popular?
EasySpider has 44,565 GitHub stars and basketball_reference_web_scraper has 556. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and basketball_reference_web_scraper free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and basketball_reference_web_scraper under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and basketball_reference_web_scraper?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript and basketball_reference_web_scraper in HTML. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, EasySpider or basketball_reference_web_scraper?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,565 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose basketball_reference_web_scraper if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.