head to head · open source
stagehand vs crw
stagehand has 25,934 GitHub stars, 1,808 forks, 376 open issues and last shipped yesterday. crw has 1,221 stars, 97 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped yesterday. stagehand leads on adoption by 2,024% (25,934 vs 1,221 stars). stagehand is written in TypeScript under MIT; crw is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. stagehand has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, crw 8%. stagehand was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai, ai-agents, data-extraction), 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
| stagehand | crw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 97 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick stagehand if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick crw if
- You want the crw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and crw fits your workflow better
About stagehand
Stagehand is the SDK to extract data and interact with any site on the web. Playwright was built for testing. Stagehand is built for agents, in TypeScript, Python, and Go. Docs · Quickstart · ⭐ Star this repo AI that uses the browser like humans. Sign in once, keep the session, and pull structured data out the other side. Python Go Install Python Go Local runs need Chrome installed. Full setup: Quickstart. Why Stagehand Token efficiency Hybrid accessibilit
read the full stagehand overview →
About crw
fastCRW Turn URLs into clean markdown or structured JSON with one engine for search, scrape, map, crawl, and extract. Run it locally as a small Rust binary or use the managed API. Get 1000 free credits → · Install · Docs No credit card. Continue with GitHub. One command install Runs local and free, no account needed. To use the Cloud, paste your key into the same command and it installs the binary, connects the key, and registers the MCP server with the AI coding tools you already have: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode and Windsurf are picked up automatically when they are already set up; nothing…
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Frequently asked questions
Is stagehand or crw more popular?
stagehand has 25,934 GitHub stars and crw has 1,221. stagehand has the larger community by that measure.
Are stagehand and crw free?
Both are open source. stagehand is licensed under MIT and crw under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between stagehand and crw?
stagehand is written in TypeScript and crw in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, stagehand or crw?
Choose stagehand if you want the larger community (25,934 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose crw if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.