In this guide, I’ll walk you through both tools, compare their features, and show you when to use each. Let’s dive in and find the best fit for your scraping needs!

What is Scrapy?

Scrapy is an open-source web scraping framework built in Python. It is designed for efficiently extracting data from websites using an asynchronous approach. Scrapy allows you to write spiders — custom scripts that navigate web pages and extract information.

Scrapy is optimized for speed and performance, making it a preferred choice for large-scale data extraction. It works well for scraping static web pages, where data is embedded in HTML. However, it struggles with sites that heavily rely on JavaScript.

Key Features of Scrapy:

• Fast and efficient: Scrapy handles multiple requests in parallel.
• Built-in crawling support: It automatically follows links and navigates through pages.
• Data export options: You can export data in JSON, CSV, XML, and other formats.
• Middleware and extensions: Custom middleware allows advanced functionality.
• Proxy and user-agent support: Helps bypass anti-scraping mechanisms.
• Scalability: Works well for scraping large datasets.

What is Playwright?

Playwright is a browser automation framework created by Microsoft. It is primarily used for testing web applications but is also powerful for web scraping. Unlike Scrapy, which works with static HTML, Playwright can render JavaScript content by running a full web browser.

Playwright supports multiple browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, and WebKit. It allows users to interact with web pages like a real user would — clicking buttons, scrolling, and filling out forms.

Key Features of Playwright:

• Handles JavaScript-heavy websites: It renders web pages like a real browser.
• Supports multiple browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge are supported.
• Headless and headed modes: It can run in the background or show the browser UI.
• Simulates user interactions: Allows clicking, typing, and scrolling.
• Handles CAPTCHAs and authentication: Useful for accessing restricted content.
• Proxy and stealth features: Helps bypass detection.

Scrapy vs. Playwright: A Feature Comparison

Scrapy and Playwright can be used for web scraping, but they have different strengths. Let’s compare them based on key factors.

Ease of Setup

• Scrapy: Simple to install with pip install scrapy. A new project can be created with one command.
• Playwright: Requires additional setup since it needs to install browser dependencies. Installation is done using pip install playwright, followed by playwright install.

Learning Curve

• Scrapy: Has a steeper learning curve because of its complex structure. Requires knowledge of spiders, middleware, and pipelines.
• Playwright: Easier for beginners who have experience with browser automation tools.

3. Handling Dynamic Content

• Scrapy: Struggles with JavaScript-rendered pages. Requires third-party tools like Splash or Selenium to extract JavaScript-based content.
• Playwright: Renders web pages in a real browser, making it ideal for scraping dynamic websites.

4. Performance and Speed

• Scrapy: Faster because it makes direct HTTP requests and does not render JavaScript. It efficiently handles multiple requests in parallel.
• Playwright: Slower than Scrapy because it loads full web pages in a browser environment. However, it is necessary for JavaScript-heavy sites.

5. Crawling Capabilities

• Scrapy: Built for web crawling. It can automatically follow links and scrape multiple pages efficiently.
• Playwright: Lacks built-in crawling support. Pagination and navigation must be handled manually.

6. Proxy and Anti-Detection Features

• Scrapy: Supports proxy rotation and user-agent spoofing through middleware.
• Playwright: Supports proxies but is more prone to detection due to browser fingerprinting. Requires extra configuration to avoid bans.

7. Data Export Options

• Scrapy: Export data to CSV, JSON, XML, or store it in databases.
• Playwright: Requires additional libraries for exporting scraped data.

Web Scraping Example: Scrapy vs. Playwright

To better understand the differences between Scrapy and Playwright, let’s see how they perform the same scraping task.

Task: Extract all book titles from the “Books to Scrape” website.

Scraping with Scrapy (Python)

import scrapy
class BooksSpider(scrapy.Spider):
name = "books"
start_urls = ["https://books.toscrape.com/catalogue/category/books/fantasy_19/index.html"]
def parse(self, response):
for book in response.css(".product_pod"):
yield {
"title": book.css("h3 a::attr(title)").get()
}
next_page = response.css("li.next a::attr(href)").get()
if next_page:
yield response.follow(next_page, callback=self.parse)

Steps:

1. Define a spider with a starting URL.
2. Extract book titles using CSS selectors.
3. Follow pagination links automatically.
4. Output results as structured data.

Command to run:

scrapy crawl books -o books.csv

Pros:

• Fast execution
• Handles pagination automatically
• Simple to run

Cons:

• Cannot scrape JavaScript-rendered content

Scraping with Playwright (Python)

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright
import csv
with sync_playwright() as p:
browser = p.chromium.launch()
page = browser.new_page()
page.goto("https://books.toscrape.com/catalogue/category/books/fantasy_19/index.html")
books = []
while True:
for book in page.locator(".product_pod").all():
title = book.locator("h3 a").get_attribute("title")
books.append({"title": title})
next_button = page.locator("li.next a")
if next_button.count() > 0:
next_button.click()
page.wait_for_load_state("domcontentloaded")
else:
break
browser.close()
# Save to CSV
with open("books.csv", "w", newline="") as f:
writer = csv.DictWriter(f, fieldnames=["title"])
writer.writeheader()
writer.writerows(books)

Steps:

1. Launch a headless browser.
2. Visit the target page.
3. Extract book titles using Playwright’s locator functions.
4. Click the “Next” button to navigate pages.
5. Store data in a CSV file.

Pros:

• Handles JavaScript-rendered pages
• Simulates real user interactions

Cons:

• Slower than Scrapy
• More manual steps for pagination

When to Use Scrapy vs. Playwright

Use Scrapy When:

• You need to scrape large amounts of static HTML content.
• Speed and efficiency are priorities.
• The website does not rely on JavaScript.
• You need automatic link-following for web crawling.

Use Playwright When:

• The website is JavaScript-heavy and requires rendering.
• You need to interact with the website (e.g., clicking buttons).
• Data is loaded dynamically via AJAX.
• You need a browser-like environment for scraping.

Conclusion

Scrapy and Playwright are powerful tools for web scraping, but they serve different purposes. Scrapy is excellent for efficiently scraping static pages, while Playwright is better suited for dynamic websites requiring JavaScript execution.

If you need a fast, scalable scraper with built-in crawling support, choose Scrapy. If you need to scrape JavaScript-heavy pages with interactive elements, go with Playwright. Understanding their strengths and limitations allows you to pick the right tool for your web scraping needs.