head to head · open source
scrapy vs VirtualBrowser
scrapy has 64,394 GitHub stars, 11,964 forks, 394 open issues and last shipped yesterday. VirtualBrowser has 3,108 stars, 487 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. scrapy leads on adoption by 1,972% (64,394 vs 3,108 stars). scrapy is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; VirtualBrowser is written in Vue under BSD-3-Clause. scrapy has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, VirtualBrowser 16%. scrapy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (web-scraping), 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.
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Side by side
| scrapy | VirtualBrowser | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Python | Vue |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 487 |
| 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 VirtualBrowser if
- You want the VirtualBrowser feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You evaluated both and VirtualBrowser 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 VirtualBrowser
简体中文 English VirtualBrowser VirtualBrowser 是一款基于 Chromium 的指纹浏览器，支持在单台 Windows 7 及以上设备上创建并管理多个相互隔离的浏览器环境。Mac、Android、Linux 等平台正在规划中。 浏览器指纹 指通过采集浏览器、操作系统与硬件等特征（如 User Agent、语言、分辨率、字体、Canvas/WebGL 噪声等）生成可用于识别或关联用户的数字签名。VirtualBrowser 帮助你在合规前提下隔离各环境的指纹，降低账号关联与追踪风险。 特性 多环境隔离 ：一台机器上创建多套独立指纹配置 集中管理 ：统一创建、启动、编辑与删除浏览器环境 丰富指纹项 ：覆盖 UA、代理、语言/时区、WebRTC、地理位置、Canvas/WebGL、AudioContext 等（见下方列表） 自动化友好 ：兼容 Playwright 等 Chromium 生态工具，示例见 automation 快速开始 安装 从 Releases 或官网下载最新安装包并完成安装：virtualbrowser.cc · vbbrowser.com 创建环境 1. 打开 VirtualBrowser，点击「创建浏览器」 2. 在弹窗中修改配置，或直接使用默认值 启动环境 1. 在环境列表中点击「启动」 2. 新打开的窗口即为该环境的独立指纹实例 指纹能力 可使用 Fingerp…
read the full VirtualBrowser overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is scrapy or VirtualBrowser more popular?
scrapy has 64,394 GitHub stars and VirtualBrowser has 3,108. scrapy has the larger community by that measure.
Are scrapy and VirtualBrowser free?
Both are open source. scrapy is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and VirtualBrowser under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between scrapy and VirtualBrowser?
scrapy is written in Python and VirtualBrowser in Vue. 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 VirtualBrowser?
Choose scrapy if you want the larger community (64,394 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose VirtualBrowser if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.