head to head · open source
scrapy vs crawlee-python
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars, 12,093 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped yesterday. crawlee-python has 9,637 stars, 820 forks, 100 open issues and last shipped yesterday. scrapy leads on adoption by 576% (65,180 vs 9,637 stars). scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; crawlee-python is written in Python under Apache-2.0. scrapy has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, crawlee-python 9%. scrapy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (crawler, crawling, 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| scrapy | crawlee-python | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 9.6K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 820 |
| 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 crawlee-python if
- You want the crawlee-python feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and crawlee-python 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 crawlee-python
A web scraping and browser automation library Crawlee covers your crawling and scraping end to end and helps you build reliable scrapers. Fast. Your crawlers will appear almost human like and fly under the radar of modern bot protections even with the default configuration. Crawlee gives you the tools to crawl the web for links, scrape data and persistently store it in machine readable formats, without having to worry about the technical details. And thanks to rich configuration options, you can tweak almost any aspect of Crawlee to suit your project's needs if the default settings don't cut it. 👉 View full…
read the full crawlee-python overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is scrapy or crawlee-python more popular?
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars and crawlee-python has 9,637. scrapy has the larger community by that measure.
Are scrapy and crawlee-python free?
Both are open source. scrapy is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and crawlee-python under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between scrapy and crawlee-python?
scrapy is written in Python and crawlee-python 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, scrapy or crawlee-python?
Choose scrapy if you want the larger community (65,180 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose crawlee-python if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.