head to head · open source
EasySpider vs reader
EasySpider has 44,558 GitHub stars, 5,386 forks, 271 open issues and last shipped yesterday. reader has 560 stars, 40 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. EasySpider leads on adoption by 7,857% (44,558 vs 560 stars). EasySpider is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; reader is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. EasySpider has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, reader 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 | reader | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 560 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 40 |
| 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 reader if
- You want the reader feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and reader 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 reader
Reader is an Apache 2.0 TypeScript library and hosted service that scrapes, crawls, and drives stealth headless browsers to deliver clean Markdown to AI agents, built for developers who need production grade web access without assembling Puppeteer, stealth plugins, and proxy infrastructure by hand.
read the full reader overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is EasySpider or reader more popular?
EasySpider has 44,558 GitHub stars and reader has 560. EasySpider has the larger community by that measure.
Are EasySpider and reader free?
Both are open source. EasySpider is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and reader under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between EasySpider and reader?
EasySpider is written in JavaScript and reader 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 reader?
Choose EasySpider if you want the larger community (44,558 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose reader if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.