head to head · open source
scrapy vs fscrawler
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars, 12,093 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fscrawler has 1,455 stars, 307 forks, 87 open issues and last shipped yesterday. scrapy leads on adoption by 4,380% (65,180 vs 1,455 stars). scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; fscrawler is written in Java under Apache-2.0. scrapy has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, fscrawler 21%. scrapy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (crawler), 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 | fscrawler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 307 |
| 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 fscrawler if
- You want the fscrawler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and fscrawler 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 fscrawler
File System Crawler for Elasticsearch Welcome to FSCrawler for Elasticsearch This crawler helps to index binary documents such as PDF, Open Office, MS Office. Main features : Local file system (or a mounted drive) crawling and index new files, update existing ones and removes old ones. Remote file system over SSH/FTP crawling. REST interface to let you "upload" your binary documents to elasticsearch. Latest versions Current versions are: Quick start Run Elasticsearch with start local : Run FSCrawler with Docker: Then open Kibana and watch for your documents coming to the fscrawler alias: Or search for some text…
read the full fscrawler 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 fscrawler more popular?
scrapy has 65,180 GitHub stars and fscrawler has 1,455. scrapy has the larger community by that measure.
Are scrapy and fscrawler free?
Both are open source. scrapy is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and fscrawler under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between scrapy and fscrawler?
scrapy is written in Python and fscrawler in Java. 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 fscrawler?
Choose scrapy if you want the larger community (65,180 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose fscrawler if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.