head to head · open source
EasySpider vs katana
EasySpider has 44,765 GitHub stars, 5,392 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped yesterday. katana has 17,786 stars, 1,213 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. EasySpider leads on adoption by 152% (44,765 vs 17,786 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; katana is written in Go under MIT. EasySpider has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, katana 7%. 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.
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Side by side
| EasySpider | katana | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 18K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 katana if
- You want the katana feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and katana fits your workflow better
About EasySpider
易采集/EasySpider: Visual Code Free Web Crawler 一个 完全免费 （ 包括商业使用和二次开发 ）的可视化浏览器自动化测试/数据采集/爬虫软件，可以使用图形化界面，无代码可视化的设计和执行任务。只需要在网页上选择自己想要操作的内容并根据提示框操作即可完成任务的设计和执行。同时软件还可以单独以命令行的方式进行执行，从而可以很方便的嵌入到其他系统中。 A completely free (including for commercial use and secondary development) visual browser automation test/data collection/crawler software, which can be used to design and execute tasks in a code free visual way. You only need to select the content you want to operate on the web page and follow the prompts to complete the design and execution of the task. At the same time, the software can also be executed separately in…
read the full EasySpider overview →
About katana
A next generation crawling and spidering framework Features • Installation • Usage • Scope • Config • Filters • Join Discord Features Fast And fully configurable web crawling Standard and Headless mode JavaScript parsing / crawling Customizable automatic form filling Scope control Preconfigured field / Regex Knowledge base ML page type / form classification (auto downloaded model) Customizable output Preconfigured fields INPUT STDIN , URL and LIST OUTPUT STDOUT , FILE and JSON Installation katana requires Go 1.26+ to install successfully. If you encounter any installation issues, we recommend trying with the…
read the full katana overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is EasySpider or katana more popular?
EasySpider has 44,765 GitHub stars and katana has 17,786. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and katana free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and katana under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and katana?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript and katana in Go. 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 katana?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,765 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose katana if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.