head to head · open source
Crawl4AI vs Maxun
Crawl4AI has 83,747 GitHub stars, 8,660 forks, 188 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Maxun has 17,485 stars, 1,509 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Crawl4AI leads on adoption by 379% (83,747 vs 17,485 stars). Crawl4AI is written in Python under Apache-2.0; Maxun is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Crawl4AI has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Maxun 9%. Maxun 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
| Crawl4AI | Maxun | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 84K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Crawl4AI if
- You weight community size — 84K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Maxun if
- You want the Maxun feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Maxun fits your workflow better
About Crawl4AI
Crawl4AI is an open source web crawler and scraper designed to prepare website content for large language model (LLM) workflows. It lives in the Python ecosystem and targets data extraction for RAG, agents, and AI pipelines. Unlike many tools that require API keys or paid subscriptions, Crawl4AI provides direct, self hosted access to web content with output structured specifically for LLM consumption.
read the full Crawl4AI overview →
About Maxun
Maxun is an open source no code web data platform for real time web scraping, crawling, search, and AI data extraction. It turns websites into structured data and presents robots that collect information without code. The TypeScript project is released under AGPL 3.0, with topics placing it in browser automation, Playwright, crawler, data extraction, and robotic process automation.
read the full Maxun overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Crawl4AI or Maxun more popular?
Crawl4AI has 83,747 GitHub stars and Maxun has 17,485. Crawl4AI has the larger community by that measure.
Are Crawl4AI and Maxun free?
Both are open source. Crawl4AI is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Maxun under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Crawl4AI and Maxun?
Crawl4AI is written in Python and Maxun 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, Crawl4AI or Maxun?
Choose Crawl4AI if you want the larger community (83,747 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Maxun if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.