head to head · open source
EasySpider vs browsertrix-crawler
EasySpider has 44,565 GitHub stars, 5,387 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped yesterday. browsertrix-crawler has 1,140 stars, 150 forks, 145 open issues and last shipped today. EasySpider leads on adoption by 3,809% (44,565 vs 1,140 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; browsertrix-crawler is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. EasySpider has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, browsertrix-crawler 13%. browsertrix-crawler 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| EasySpider | browsertrix-crawler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 150 |
| 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 browsertrix-crawler if
- You want the browsertrix-crawler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and browsertrix-crawler 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 browsertrix-crawler
Browsertrix Crawler 1.x Browsertrix Crawler is a standalone browser based high fidelity crawling system, designed to run a complex, customizable browser based crawl in a single Docker container. Browsertrix Crawler uses Puppeteer to control one or more Brave Browser browser windows in parallel. Data is captured through the Chrome Devtools Protocol (CDP) in the browser. For information on how to use and develop Browsertrix Crawler, see the hosted Browsertrix Crawler documentation. For information on how to build the docs locally, see the docs page. Support Initial support for 0.x version of Browsertrix Crawler, wa…
read the full browsertrix-crawler overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is EasySpider or browsertrix-crawler more popular?
EasySpider has 44,565 GitHub stars and browsertrix-crawler has 1,140. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and browsertrix-crawler free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and browsertrix-crawler under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and browsertrix-crawler?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript and browsertrix-crawler in TypeScript. 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 browsertrix-crawler?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,565 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose browsertrix-crawler if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.