head to head · open source
EasySpider vs PDFLayoutTextStripper
EasySpider has 44,717 GitHub stars, 5,394 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PDFLayoutTextStripper has 1,610 stars, 213 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. EasySpider leads on adoption by 2,677% (44,717 vs 1,610 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; PDFLayoutTextStripper is written in Java under Apache-2.0. EasySpider has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, PDFLayoutTextStripper 13%. EasySpider was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | PDFLayoutTextStripper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 213 |
| 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 PDFLayoutTextStripper if
- You want the PDFLayoutTextStripper 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 PDFLayoutTextStripper 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 PDFLayoutTextStripper
PDFLayoutTextStripper Converts a PDF file into a text file while keeping the layout of the original PDF. Useful to extract the content from a table or a form in a PDF file. PDFLayoutTextStripper is a subclass of PDFTextStripper class (from the Apache PDFBox library). This repository is supported by our sponsor Spire.PDF for Java Create, edit, convert, and process PDF documents programmatically in Java, with support for tables, forms, images, annotations, and more. Explore Spire.PDF for Java → Use cases Data extraction from a table in a PDF file Data extraction from a form in a PDF file How to install Maven…
read the full PDFLayoutTextStripper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is EasySpider or PDFLayoutTextStripper more popular?
EasySpider has 44,717 GitHub stars and PDFLayoutTextStripper has 1,610. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and PDFLayoutTextStripper free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and PDFLayoutTextStripper under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and PDFLayoutTextStripper?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript and PDFLayoutTextStripper 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 PDFLayoutTextStripper?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,717 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose PDFLayoutTextStripper if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.