head to head · open source
playwright vs scrapy
playwright has 99,226 GitHub stars, 6,789 forks, 185 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. scrapy has 65,209 stars, 12,092 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. playwright leads on adoption by 52% (99,226 vs 65,209 stars). playwright is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. playwright has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, scrapy 19%. playwright 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
| playwright | scrapy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 99K | ★ 65K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.8K | ⑂ 12K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick playwright if
- You weight community size — 99K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick scrapy if
- You want the scrapy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and scrapy fits your workflow better
About playwright
🎭 Playwright Documentation API reference Playwright is a framework for web automation and testing. It drives Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with a single API — in your tests, in your scripts, and as a tool for AI agents. Get Started Choose the path that fits your workflow: Playwright Test Playwright Test is a full featured test runner built for end to end testing. It runs tests across Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit with full browser isolation, auto waiting, and web first assertions. Install Or add manually: Write a test Run tests Tests run in parallel across all configured browsers, in headless mode by default…
read the full playwright overview →
About scrapy
.. logo image:: :target: :alt: Scrapy :width: 480px .. version image:: :target: :alt: PyPI Version .. python version image:: :target: :alt: Supported Python Versions .. tests image:: :target: :alt: Tests .. coverage image:: :target: :alt: Coverage report .. conda image:: :target: :alt: Conda Version .. deepwiki image:: :target: :alt: Ask DeepWiki Scrapy is a web scraping framework to extract structured data from websites. It is cross platform, and requires Python 3.10+. It is maintained by Zyte (formerly Scrapinghub) and many other contributors . .. many other contributors: .. Scrapy: .. Zyte: Install with…
read the full scrapy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is playwright or scrapy more popular?
playwright has 99,226 GitHub stars and scrapy has 65,209. playwright has the larger community by that measure.
Are playwright and scrapy free?
Both are open source. playwright is licensed under Apache-2.0 and scrapy under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between playwright and scrapy?
playwright is written in TypeScript and scrapy 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, playwright or scrapy?
Choose playwright if you want the larger community (99,226 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose scrapy if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.