head to head · open source
EasySpider vs icrawler
EasySpider has 44,565 GitHub stars, 5,387 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped yesterday. icrawler has 933 stars, 181 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. EasySpider leads on adoption by 4,677% (44,565 vs 933 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; icrawler is written in Python under MIT. EasySpider has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, icrawler 19%. EasySpider 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 | icrawler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 933 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-12-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 181 |
| 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 icrawler if
- You want the icrawler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and icrawler 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 icrawler
icrawler ======== .. image:: :target: :alt: PyPI Version .. image:: :target: :alt: Anaconda Version .. image:: :alt: Python Version .. image:: :alt: License Introduction Documentation: Try it with pip install icrawler or conda install c hellock icrawler . This package is a mini framework of web crawlers. With modularization design, it is easy to use and extend. It supports media data like images and videos very well, and can also be applied to texts and other type of files. Scrapy is heavy and powerful, while icrawler is tiny and flexible. With this package, you can write a multiple thread crawler easily by focus…
read the full icrawler 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 icrawler more popular?
EasySpider has 44,565 GitHub stars and icrawler has 933. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and icrawler free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and icrawler under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and icrawler?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript and icrawler in Python. 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 icrawler?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,565 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose icrawler if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.