head to head · open source
scrapy vs brightdata-mcp
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars, 12,093 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped yesterday. brightdata-mcp has 2,705 stars, 337 forks, 40 open issues and last shipped yesterday. scrapy leads on adoption by 2,310% (65,180 vs 2,705 stars). scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; brightdata-mcp is written in JavaScript under MIT. scrapy has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, brightdata-mcp 12%. scrapy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (scraping), 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 | brightdata-mcp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 337 |
| 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 brightdata-mcp if
- You want the brightdata-mcp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and brightdata-mcp 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 brightdata-mcp
Bright Data MCP Web search, page scraping, structured data extraction, and browser automation for AI agents and LLMs over the Model Context Protocol. Works with AI agents, coding agents, chat assistants, and any MCP compatible client. Quick Start • Pricing • Use Cases • Tools • Agent Skills • Docs • Support Free tier: 5,000 requests per month. No credit card required. Renews monthly. Overview The Bright Data MCP server gives AI agents real time access to public web data. It exposes 69 tools covering: Web search — Google, Bing, and Yandex results as structured data Page scraping — any URL as Markdown or HTML…
read the full brightdata-mcp overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is scrapy or brightdata-mcp more popular?
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars and brightdata-mcp has 2,705. scrapy has the larger community by that measure.
Are scrapy and brightdata-mcp free?
Both are open source. scrapy is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and brightdata-mcp under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between scrapy and brightdata-mcp?
scrapy is written in Python and brightdata-mcp in JavaScript. 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 brightdata-mcp?
Choose scrapy if you want the larger community (65,180 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose brightdata-mcp if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.