head to head · open source
EasySpider vs fess
EasySpider has 44,565 GitHub stars, 5,387 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fess has 1,136 stars, 175 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped yesterday. EasySpider leads on adoption by 3,823% (44,565 vs 1,136 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; fess is written in Java under Apache-2.0. EasySpider has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, fess 15%. fess 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
| EasySpider | fess | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 175 |
| 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 fess if
- You want the fess 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 fess 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 fess
Fess: Enterprise Search Server Overview Fess is an enterprise search server that you can install and run on any platform with a Java runtime. It is built on OpenSearch, but prior OpenSearch knowledge is not required: Fess is configured through a browser based administration UI. A built in crawler collects documents from web sites, file systems, and data stores such as databases and CSV files. Many file formats are supported, including Microsoft Office, PDF, and ZIP archives. Fess Site Search is a free alternative to Google Site Search that you can embed in your own website. For details, see the FSS JS Generator d…
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Frequently asked questions
Is EasySpider or fess more popular?
EasySpider has 44,565 GitHub stars and fess has 1,136. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and fess free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and fess under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and fess?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript and fess 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, EasySpider or fess?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,565 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose fess if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.