head to head · open source
scrapy vs ferret
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars, 12,093 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ferret has 6,020 stars, 325 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped yesterday. scrapy leads on adoption by 983% (65,180 vs 6,020 stars). scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; ferret is written in Go under Apache-2.0. scrapy has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, ferret 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 | ferret | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 325 |
| 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 ferret if
- You want the ferret feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ferret 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 ferret
Ferret Try it! Docs CLI Test runner Web worker Explore Ferret v2 Ferret v2 is currently in alpha. You can try the new syntax in the playground and read more about the design behind the new runtime and language capabilities: Try Ferret v2 in the Playground On the Road to Ferret v2 Inside Ferret v2: The New Execution Model Inside Ferret v2: New Language Capabilities Notice: This branch contains the upcoming Ferret v2 . For the stable v1 release, please visit Ferret v1. What is it? Ferret is a declarative first, expression oriented embedded language and runtime for data automation. FQL combines querying…
read the full ferret overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is scrapy or ferret more popular?
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars and ferret has 6,020. scrapy has the larger community by that measure.
Are scrapy and ferret free?
Both are open source. scrapy is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and ferret under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between scrapy and ferret?
scrapy is written in Python and ferret in Go. 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 ferret?
Choose scrapy if you want the larger community (65,180 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose ferret if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.