head to head · open source
scrapy vs browserless
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars, 12,093 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped yesterday. browserless has 1,843 stars, 93 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. scrapy leads on adoption by 3,437% (65,180 vs 1,843 stars). scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; browserless is written in JavaScript under MIT. scrapy has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, browserless 5%. scrapy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | browserless | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 93 |
| 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 browserless if
- You want the browserless feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and browserless 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 browserless
The headless Chrome/Chromium driver on top of Puppeteer. Highlights Installation Usage The cloud API solution CLI Initializing a browser .constructor(options) .createContext(options) .browser() .respawn() .close() Built in .html(url, options) .text(url, options) .pdf(url, options) .screenshot(url, options) .destroyContext(options) .getDevice(options) .evaluate(fn, gotoOpts) .goto(page, options) .context() [.withPage(fn, \[options\])]( withpagefn options) [.page(\[name\])]( pagename) Extended ai function lighthouse screencast Packages FAQ License Highlights Compatible with Puppeteer API (text, screenshot, html…
read the full browserless overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is scrapy or browserless more popular?
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars and browserless has 1,843. scrapy has the larger community by that measure.
Are scrapy and browserless free?
Both are open source. scrapy is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and browserless under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between scrapy and browserless?
scrapy is written in Python and browserless 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 browserless?
Choose scrapy if you want the larger community (65,180 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose browserless if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.