# Crawlee

> Apache-2.0 Node.js crawling and scraping library from Apify, HTTP or headless browser

**Category:** Libraries  
**Pricing:** open-source  
**URL:** https://crawlee.dev  
**GitHub:** https://github.com/apify/crawlee  
**Added:** 2026-10-10

---

## The Hook

Crawlee wraps the boring parts of scraping — request queues, retries, proxy rotation, session handling, storage — around Cheerio, Playwright or Puppeteer crawlers, so you write the page logic and not the plumbing.

## What's Good

Apache-2.0 (apify/crawlee), release v3.18.2. `npx crawlee create my-crawler` scaffolds a TypeScript project. Swap between a fast HTTP crawler and a full browser crawler with the same API, with browser fingerprinting and autoscaling built in. Runs anywhere; deploying to Apify is optional. ★~26k.

## The Catch

Needs Node 22.13 or newer. The Python version is a separate project with its own feature set, so do not assume parity. Heavy production crawling usually needs paid proxies to avoid blocks — the library rotates them, it does not supply them. Vs apify-mcp (gives an agent access to ready-made Apify scrapers) and playwright (the browser automation underneath): Crawlee is the crawler framework you build your own scraper on.

## Verdict

The default Node scraping framework when a one-off Playwright script has turned into a crawler — budget for proxies.