head to head · open source
proxy_pool vs xxl-crawler
proxy_pool has 23,717 GitHub stars, 5,418 forks, 298 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. xxl-crawler has 758 stars, 318 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. proxy_pool leads on adoption by 3,029% (23,717 vs 758 stars). proxy_pool is written in Python under MIT; xxl-crawler is written in Java under Apache-2.0. proxy_pool has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, xxl-crawler 42%. xxl-crawler 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
| proxy_pool | xxl-crawler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 758 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-06-15 | 2026-08-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.4K | ⑂ 318 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick proxy_pool if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick xxl-crawler if
- You want the xxl-crawler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and xxl-crawler fits your workflow better
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 →
About xxl-crawler
XXL CRAWLER is a lightweight, open source Java web crawler framework that lets a developer start a multi threaded crawler with a single line of code and map collected page data into Java objects through annotations, built for Java teams that need to gather web data without adopting a heavyweight scraping platform.
read the full xxl-crawler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is proxy_pool or xxl-crawler more popular?
proxy_pool has 23,717 GitHub stars and xxl-crawler has 758. proxy_pool has the larger community by that measure.
Are proxy_pool and xxl-crawler free?
Both are open source. proxy_pool is licensed under MIT and xxl-crawler under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between proxy_pool and xxl-crawler?
proxy_pool is written in Python and xxl-crawler in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, proxy_pool or xxl-crawler?
Choose proxy_pool if you want the larger community (23,717 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xxl-crawler if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.