Last updated Repo data refreshed 25 Oct 20262 options
Our pick · scrapy
Our pick for scraping many pages is Scrapy: a Python web scraping framework built to extract structured data from websites. Playwright for Python is the better fit for pages that only render with JavaScript, since it drives real Chromium, WebKit or Firefox browsers. For sites that need both, the scrapy-playwright plugin adds Playwright to a Scrapy project.
A fast, high-level screen scraping and web crawling framework for Python that makes it easy to extract data from websites.
Best for: Large-scale, high-performance web crawling and data extraction from static or moderately dynamic websites where efficiency and scalability are paramount.
What's good
Highly scalable and performant for large-scale crawling, thanks to its asynchronous architecture (Twisted).
Comprehensive framework with built-in components for handling requests, responses, item pipelines, link extractors, and middleware.
Extensive documentation, large community, and mature ecosystem with many plugins and add-ons.
Robust request scheduling, retries, and handling of redirects and cookies out-of-the-box.
Watch out for
Steep learning curve for beginners due to its opinionated structure and asynchronous nature.
★ 15,066 starsLicence: Apache-2.0Last commit 24 Oct 2026Latest release 22 Oct 2026Python
Playwright is a Python library to automate Chromium, Firefox and WebKit with a single API, enabling robust and reliable web scraping of dynamic websites.
Best for: Scraping highly dynamic, JavaScript-rendered websites and single-page applications (SPAs) where full browser capabilities and interaction are essential.
What's good
Excellent for scraping modern, JavaScript-heavy websites as it automates real browser instances (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit).
Provides a powerful API for interacting with pages, handling events, waiting for elements, and bypassing common anti-bot measures.
Supports parallel execution, screenshotting, PDF generation, and network request interception, offering deep control over the browsing context.
Cross-browser compatibility and active development by Microsoft ensure a reliable and up-to-date tool.
Watch out for
Higher resource consumption (CPU, RAM) compared to requests-based scrapers due to running full browser instances.
Slower execution speed for static content compared to Scrapy or Requests, as it involves rendering the entire page.
Requires careful management of browser instances and contexts to avoid memory leaks or performance degradation in long-running tasks.
"Dormant" means no commit pushed to the default branch in the last 12 months. "Archived" means the maintainers have marked the repository read-only on GitHub. "Deprecated" means the project's README says it is deprecated or no longer maintained. Stars, licence, commit and release dates come from the GitHub API (GitLab for projects developed there) and are cached for up to 24 hours. The written analysis is AI-assisted and checked against that data.
Crawling at scale vs JavaScript-heavy pages
Scrapy is a web scraping framework for extracting structured data from websites, installed with pip. Playwright drives real browsers, covering Chromium, WebKit and Firefox, headless or headed, so it can scrape pages that only render their content with JavaScript. It was created for end-to-end testing, and its library can also be used for general browser automation.
scrapy-playwright is a Playwright integration for Scrapy, so a Scrapy project can render JavaScript pages in a Playwright browser while keeping Scrapy for the crawl.
For static HTML, the full Python scraping comparison also covers requests-html and the Apify SDK, with each project's live maintenance status.
Frequently asked questions
Is Playwright better than Scrapy for scraping?
They do different jobs. Playwright drives a real browser, which JavaScript-heavy pages need; Scrapy is a framework for extracting structured data from many pages. Many projects use Scrapy for the crawl and Playwright only where a browser is needed.
Are Scrapy and Playwright for Python actively maintained?
Scrapy and Playwright for Python are active: each has had a commit in the last 12 months (most recent: Scrapy on 22 Oct 2026, Playwright for Python on 24 Oct 2026). Status is checked against GitHub daily.
What licences do Scrapy and Playwright for Python use?
Scrapy: BSD-3-Clause; Playwright for Python: Apache-2.0. Check each project's licence file before use.
