head to head · open source
scrapy vs ArrowDL
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars, 12,093 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ArrowDL has 853 stars, 42 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. scrapy leads on adoption by 7,541% (65,180 vs 853 stars). scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; ArrowDL is written in C++ under LGPL-3.0. scrapy has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, ArrowDL 5%. scrapy 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
| scrapy | ArrowDL | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 853 |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 42 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick scrapy if
- You weight community size — 65K 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 ArrowDL if
- You want the ArrowDL feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and ArrowDL fits your workflow better
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 →
About ArrowDL
ArrowDL (Arrow Downloader) Overview ArrowDL is a standalone download manager for Windows, MacOS and Linux. It aims to work with latest versions of Mozilla Firefox (powered by WebExtensions ), and other web browsers (Chrome, Edge, Safari...). Development ArrowDL is written in C++ and based on the Qt framework. Screenshots Overview Video Streams Webpage Content Batch of Files More screenshots on the Gallery page. Installation Go to Download page to install the application for your operating system. Rem: Native Client is an alternative to ArrowDL . Click here for more information. On Windows, you can also use the…
read the full ArrowDL overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is scrapy or ArrowDL more popular?
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars and ArrowDL has 853. scrapy has the larger community by that measure.
Are scrapy and ArrowDL free?
Both are open source. scrapy is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and ArrowDL under LGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between scrapy and ArrowDL?
scrapy is written in Python and ArrowDL in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, scrapy or ArrowDL?
Choose scrapy if you want the larger community (65,180 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose ArrowDL if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.