head to head · open source
scrapy vs browserless
scrapy has 64,394 GitHub stars, 11,964 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped yesterday. browserless has 1,835 stars, 91 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. scrapy leads on adoption by 3,409% (64,394 vs 1,835 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 | ★ 64K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 91 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick scrapy if
- You weight community size — 64K 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
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 →
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, pd…
read the full browserless overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is scrapy or browserless more popular?
scrapy has 64,394 GitHub stars and browserless has 1,835. 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 (64,394 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose browserless if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.