head to head · open source
colly vs proxy_pool
colly has 25,520 GitHub stars, 1,862 forks, 195 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. proxy_pool has 23,707 stars, 5,418 forks, 298 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. colly leads on adoption by 8% (25,520 vs 23,707 stars). colly is written in Go under Apache-2.0; proxy_pool is written in Python under MIT. colly has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, proxy_pool 23%. colly was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (crawler, spider), 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
| colly | proxy_pool | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 24K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-06-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 5.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick colly if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick proxy_pool if
- You want the proxy_pool feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and proxy_pool fits your workflow better
About colly
Colly is an open source scraping and crawling framework written in Go, distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Go ecosystem and is consumed as a library rather than a standalone application: the README describes it as providing a clean interface for writing any kind of crawler, scraper, or spider, and the project's own topics list it as a crawler, crawling framework, scraper, scraping tool, and spider. The repository has been public for roughly nine years, carries 25,516 stars and 1,862 forks, and its most recent push was on 2 September 2026. Documentation and examples are hosted at go colly.org…
read the full colly overview →
About proxy_pool
proxy pool is a self hosted Python proxy IP pool for web spiders that continuously collects, checks, and serves rotating HTTP proxies from public free proxy sources through a Redis backed pool.
read the full proxy_pool overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is colly or proxy_pool more popular?
colly has 25,520 GitHub stars and proxy_pool has 23,707. colly has the larger community by that measure.
Are colly and proxy_pool free?
Both are open source. colly is licensed under Apache-2.0 and proxy_pool under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between colly and proxy_pool?
colly is written in Go and proxy_pool 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, colly or proxy_pool?
Choose colly if you want the larger community (25,520 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose proxy_pool if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.