head to head · open source
Scrapling vs katana
Scrapling has 81,798 GitHub stars, 8,307 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. katana has 17,518 stars, 1,183 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Scrapling leads on adoption by 367% (81,798 vs 17,518 stars). Scrapling is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; katana is written in Go under MIT. Scrapling has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, katana 7%. Scrapling 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
| Scrapling | katana | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 82K | ★ 18K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.3K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Scrapling if
- You weight community size — 82K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick katana if
- You want the katana feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and katana fits your workflow better
About Scrapling
Scrapling is an adaptive Python web scraping framework for developers, data teams, and regular users who need anything from a single request to a full scale crawl without rewriting selectors every time a site changes.
read the full Scrapling overview →
About katana
Katana is an open source, MIT licensed crawling and spidering framework written in Go, built for security engineers and automation pipelines that need to map web applications at scale rather than explore them by hand.
read the full katana overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Scrapling or katana more popular?
Scrapling has 81,798 GitHub stars and katana has 17,518. Scrapling has the larger community by that measure.
Are Scrapling and katana free?
Both are open source. Scrapling is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and katana under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Scrapling and katana?
Scrapling is written in Python and katana in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Scrapling or katana?
Choose Scrapling if you want the larger community (81,798 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose katana if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.