head to head · open source
katana vs freeproxy
katana has 17,794 GitHub stars, 1,215 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. freeproxy has 578 stars, 102 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. katana leads on adoption by 2,979% (17,794 vs 578 stars). katana is written in Go under MIT; freeproxy is written in Python under Apache-2.0. katana has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, freeproxy 18%. freeproxy 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
| katana | freeproxy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 578 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 102 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick katana if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick freeproxy if
- You want the freeproxy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and freeproxy fits your workflow better
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 →
About freeproxy
📚 Documentation ⚡ Live Proxies (最新免费高质量代理) 学习收获更多有趣的内容, 欢迎关注微信公众号：Charles的皮卡丘 ✨ What's New 2026 09 16: Released pyfreeproxy v0.5.2 — Perform monthly code maintenance, removed TrustyTechProxiedSession , added HProxyProxiedSession , fixed several proxy sources, and improved IDE hints. 2026 08 03: Released pyfreeproxy v0.5.1 — Perform monthly code maintenance, fix the ProxyShare and ProxyVerity proxy sources, and add ProxyLister and LitPort as new proxy sources. 2026 07 13: Released pyfreeproxy v0.5.0 — Regularly check whether all proxy sources are still functional, fix three invalid proxy sources, and add three…
read the full freeproxy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is katana or freeproxy more popular?
katana has 17,794 GitHub stars and freeproxy has 578. katana has the larger community by that measure.
Are katana and freeproxy free?
Both are open source. katana is licensed under MIT and freeproxy under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between katana and freeproxy?
katana is written in Go and freeproxy 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, katana or freeproxy?
Choose katana if you want the larger community (17,794 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose freeproxy if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.