head to head · open source
Browser Use vs scrapy
Browser Use has 115,379 GitHub stars, 12,695 forks, 421 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. scrapy has 64,413 stars, 11,964 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Browser Use leads on adoption by 79% (115,379 vs 64,413 stars). Browser Use is written in Python under MIT; scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. Browser Use has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, scrapy 19%. Browser Use was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (python), 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
| Browser Use | scrapy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 115K | ★ 64K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 12K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Browser Use if
- You weight community size — 115K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick scrapy if
- You want the scrapy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and scrapy fits your workflow better
About Browser Use
Browser Use is an open source Python library and hosted platform that enables AI agents to control web browsers programmatically. It lives in the AI agent and browser automation ecosystem, built on Playwright and designed to let LLMs interact with websites as a human would—clicking, filling forms, solving CAPTCHAs, and navigating dynamic interfaces. The project provides three deployment paths: a fully hosted cloud service, a command line interface for existing agents, and a local Python library for custom integrations.
read the full Browser Use overview →
About scrapy
Scrapy is a web scraping framework written in Python, distributed under the BSD 3 Clause license, and described in its own README as a tool to extract structured data from websites. It is cross platform and requires Python 3.10 or newer. The project is maintained by Zyte, formerly known as Scrapinghub, together with a broader group of contributors, and it lives in the Python ecosystem as an installable library rather than a hosted service. Its repository is roughly seventeen years old, which places it among the longer running projects in the web scraping space.
read the full scrapy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Browser Use or scrapy more popular?
Browser Use has 115,379 GitHub stars and scrapy has 64,413. Browser Use has the larger community by that measure.
Are Browser Use and scrapy free?
Both are open source. Browser Use is licensed under MIT and scrapy under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Browser Use and scrapy?
Browser Use is written in Python and scrapy 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, Browser Use or scrapy?
Choose Browser Use if you want the larger community (115,379 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose scrapy if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.