head to head · open source
EasySpider vs brightdata-mcp
EasySpider has 44,558 GitHub stars, 5,386 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped yesterday. brightdata-mcp has 2,648 stars, 328 forks, 40 open issues and last shipped yesterday. EasySpider leads on adoption by 1,583% (44,558 vs 2,648 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; brightdata-mcp is written in JavaScript under MIT. EasySpider has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, brightdata-mcp 12%. brightdata-mcp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (data-collection), 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
| EasySpider | brightdata-mcp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 328 |
| 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 brightdata-mcp if
- You want the brightdata-mcp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and brightdata-mcp 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 brightdata-mcp
brightdata mcp is a Model Context Protocol server in JavaScript under the MIT license. It exposes web search, page scraping, structured data extraction, browser automation, LLM response collection, and package registry data to AI agents, coding agents, chat assistants, and other MCP compatible clients. It lives in the MCP ecosystem.
read the full brightdata-mcp overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is EasySpider or brightdata-mcp more popular?
EasySpider has 44,558 GitHub stars and brightdata-mcp has 2,648. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and brightdata-mcp free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and brightdata-mcp under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and brightdata-mcp?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript and brightdata-mcp 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, EasySpider or brightdata-mcp?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,558 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose brightdata-mcp if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.