Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Scrapy VS Medium

Compare Scrapy VS Medium and see what are their differences

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Scrapy logo Scrapy

A Fast and Powerful Scraping and Web Crawling Framework

Medium logo Medium

Welcome to Medium, a place to read, write, and interact with the stories that matter most to you.
  • Scrapy Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-11
  • Medium Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-08

Scrapy features and specs

  • Efficiency
    Scrapy is designed to be efficient and robust, capable of handling multiple tasks simultaneously and scraping large websites in a fast and reliable manner.
  • Built-in Tooling
    Scrapy comes with built-in tools for handling common tasks such as following links, extracting data using XPath and CSS, and exporting data in a variety of formats.
  • Customization
    Scrapy offers extensive customization options, allowing users to build complex spiders and modify their behavior through middleware and pipelines.
  • Python Integration
    Being a Python framework, Scrapy integrates seamlessly with the Python ecosystem, enabling the use of libraries like Pandas, NumPy, and others to process and analyze scraped data.
  • Community Support
    Scrapy has a large and active community, providing extensive documentation, tutorials, and third-party extensions to enhance functionality.
  • Asynchronous Processing
    Scrapyโ€™s asynchronous processing model enhances performance by allowing multiple concurrent requests, reducing the time required for crawling sites.

Possible disadvantages of Scrapy

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For beginners, Scrapy's comprehensive feature set and the need for understanding concepts like XPath and CSS selectors can be challenging.
  • Resource Intensive
    Scrapy can be resource-intensive, potentially consuming significant memory and CPU, which can be problematic for scraping very large websites or running multiple spiders simultaneously.
  • Debugging Complexity
    Debugging Scrapy projects can be complex due to its asynchronous nature and the multiple layers of middleware and pipelines that need to be understood.
  • Overhead for Small Projects
    For simple or small-scale scraping tasks, the overhead of setting up and configuring a Scrapy project might be excessive, with simpler alternatives being more suitable.
  • Limited JavaScript Support
    Scrapy's out-of-the-box support for JavaScript-heavy websites is limited, requiring additional tools like Splash or Selenium, which can complicate the setup.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing Scrapy's dependencies and compatibility with other Python packages can sometimes be challenging, leading to potential conflicts and maintenance overhead.

Medium features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Medium offers an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple for anyone to start writing and publishing content without any technical knowledge.
  • Built-in Audience
    The platform has a large and active user base, so new content has the potential to reach a wide audience quickly.
  • Publishing Tools
    Medium provides versatile publishing tools that support text, images, and various media formats, which helps in creating rich and engaging content.
  • SEO Benefits
    Articles posted on Medium tend to rank well in search engine results, thanks to the platform's high domain authority.
  • Community and Interaction
    Medium encourages reader engagement through comments, claps, and highlights, fostering a sense of community among writers and readers.

Possible disadvantages of Medium

  • Monetization
    While Medium has a Partner Program, it may not be as lucrative as other methods of monetization available on independent blogging platforms.
  • Control and Customization
    Medium offers limited customization options compared to dedicated blog platforms like WordPress, restricting how you can brand and personalize your blog.
  • Content Ownership
    By publishing on Medium, you agree to their terms and conditions, which may include giving up some control over how your content is used and distributed.
  • Paywall Issues
    Some articles are placed behind a paywall, which might limit the reach of your content if you want it to be freely accessible to everyone.
  • Dependency on Platform
    Relying solely on Medium means that any changes to the platform's policies or algorithms can directly impact your reach and engagement.

Analysis of Scrapy

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Scrapy is a good option for those looking to implement web scraping projects due to its robust set of features, active community, and comprehensive documentation. It is particularly well-suited for projects that require scraping from multiple websites and processing large volumes of data efficiently.

Why this product is good

  • Scrapy is a popular open-source web crawling framework for Python that's designed for extensive, flexible, and efficient web scraping. Its built-in tools and features make it easy to extract data from websites quickly and automatically. Key advantages include its ability to handle requests asynchronously, its support for multiple protocols, its item pipeline feature that allows for data cleaning and storage, and its ease of integration with other Python libraries and databases.

Recommended for

    Scrapy is recommended for developers, data scientists, and businesses that need to gather data from websites efficiently. It's particularly useful for projects involving data aggregation, market research, competitive analysis, and monitoring pricing changes across various platforms.

Analysis of Medium

Overall verdict

  • Medium can be considered a good platform for those who enjoy a wide array of content and appreciate quality writing on diverse subjects. However, the value of Medium depends on individual preferences and whether the topics and writing styles align with what the reader is looking for.

Why this product is good

  • Medium offers a diverse range of articles from both professional and amateur writers, providing readers with numerous perspectives on various topics. Its clean user interface and ease of use make it an appealing platform for both writers and readers. The platform also supports monetization for writers, allowing them to earn from their content.

Recommended for

    Medium is recommended for avid readers seeking a variety of topics ranging from personal development to technology. It's also ideal for writers looking to publish their work to a broad audience and potentially earn revenue through the platform's Partner Program.

Scrapy videos

Python Scrapy Tutorial - 22 - Web Scraping Amazon

More videos:

  • Demo - Scrapy - Overview and Demo (web crawling and scraping)
  • Review - GFuel LemoNADE Taste Test & Review! | Scrapy

Medium videos

Medium Review - with Tom Vasel

More videos:

  • Review - Starting a blog on Medium.com? Watch this FIRST.
  • Review - The Medium Review
  • Review - The Medium - Before You Buy
  • Review - I recommend: The Medium (Review)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Scrapy and Medium)
Web Scraping
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging
0 0%
100% 100
Data Extraction
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging Platform
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Scrapy and Medium

Scrapy Reviews

Top 15 Best TinyTask Alternatives in 2022
The software is simply deployable via the cloud, or you can host the spiders on your server using Scrapy. Only the rules need to be written; Scrapy will take care of the rest to separate the facts. With Scrapyโ€™s portability and ability to run on Windows, Linux, Mac, and BSD platforms, new features can be added without affecting the programโ€™s core.

Medium Reviews

19 Best WordPress Alternatives in 2025
Medium focuses on thoughtful content and community engagement. It offers a user-friendly interface, a large readership base, and various features for writers and readers.
Source: www.pixpa.com
25+ Medium Alternative Platforms for Publishing Articles
Medium is an online platform that was created in 2012 by Evan Williams. It is a place for people to share their thoughts and ideas on various topics. Medium has about 100 million monthly visitors, which makes it one of the most popular platforms for publishing articles.
Source: forgefusion.io
10 Best Medium Alternatives for Reading and Publishing
From thะต simplicity of Ghost to thะต vะตrsatility of Substack, thะตrะตโ€™s a homะต for ะตvะตryonะต seeking great Medium alternatives. Thะตsะต altะตrnativะตs offะตr a world of possibilitiะตs for rะตadะตrs and authors alikะต. Whะตthะตr youโ€™rะต in sะตarch of a uniquะต platform to sharะต your thoughts or want to read frะตsh contะตnt, thะตsะต platforms havะต somะตthing spะตcial to offะตr. All in all, we...
9 Best Medium Alternatives for Making Money With Your Writing in 2023
Substack and Medium differ primarily in their monetization methods. Medium pays creators based on reader engagement, while Substack enables writers to monetize directly through paid subscriptions to their newsletters. This business model allows Substack users to build a direct relationship with their readers via their email inboxes, whereas Medium interactions primarily...
How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform in 2021 (Compared)
Medium works much like a social networking site where you can create an account and start publishing your articles. After you sign up, youโ€™ll have a profile address like this: https://medium.com/@yourname. But you cannot use your own domain.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Medium seems to be a lot more popular than Scrapy. While we know about 3097 links to Medium, we've tracked only 101 mentions of Scrapy. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Scrapy mentions (101)

  • Why everyone is talking about loop-engineering and how is it changing agentic ai workflows? Claude Code and Web Scraping examples
    Think about what a mature scraping project already contains. There is a schema that every item must validate against. There are field coverage thresholds, because a run where only 60% of products have prices is a failed run no matter what the exit code says. There are expected item counts, error rate ceilings, and finish reason checks. In the Scrapy world we even have a dedicated framework for all of this, and I... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • How to write and publish a Python package to PyPI
    This guide walks through the full process using uv, a fast, modern Python toolchain that replaces pip, virtualenv, pip-tools, twine, and build with a single tool. We will write a reusable Scrapy download handler, structure it as a proper Python package, test it, and publish it to PyPI. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How to tell if a page uses JavaScript rendering (and what to do about it)
    In Scrapy, Zyte API integrates via the scrapy-zyte-api package:. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • How to Use rs-trafilatura with Scrapy
    Scrapy is the standard Python framework for web scraping. It handles crawling, scheduling, and data pipelines. rs-trafilatura plugs into Scrapy as an item pipeline โ€” your spider yields items with HTML, and the pipeline adds structured extraction results automatically. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Current problems and mistakes of web scraping in Python and tricks to solve them!
    One might ask, what about Scrapy? I'll be honest: I don't really keep up with their updates. But I haven't heard about Zyte doing anything to bypass TLS fingerprinting. So out of the box Scrapy will also be blocked, but nothing is stopping you from using curl_cffi in your Scrapy Spider. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
View more

Medium mentions (3097)

  • Google will expand age checks on Android worldwide till the end of the year
    >Viewing the continuance of our race as only the responsibility of parents is pathological. That seems to be a uniquely American pathology. Everywhere where else in the world, and in non-white American subcultures, the community is expected a hand in raising children. But many Americans consider it socialist and an attack on Christian values. See Hillary Clinton getting mocked for saying "it takes a village"[0] or... - Source: Hacker News / 3 days ago
  • The Productivity Mirage
    I think the downvotes are for saying positive things about AI. HN doesn't like that ;) And yes, messing about with skills is the new messing around with setup. It's a rabbit hole. I'm a massive, massive, believer in The Cult of Done [0] especially "the point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done". Allowing myself to finish something badly so that I can move on to the next thing was a... - Source: Hacker News / 4 days ago
  • Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped
    Why is a "Disable Javascript" option provided in every so-called "modern" browser Why would a user prefer in some cases not to use a third party's Javascript Depends on the user. For example, here's one user who publishes a website on the subject https://disable-javascript.org/ Consider the level of data collection and behavioral surveillance enabled by the SearchGuard Javascript at issue in Google LLC v SerpApi... - Source: Hacker News / 6 days ago
  • I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore
    'If we all woke up tomorrow and thought 'we need 10 million new homes'' The cost of 1 Million homes where people want to live (where your community is), would be roughly 0.5 Trillion to 1 Trillion USD [1]. So, I don't think this is true :(. Again, I want this to be true. But it is not today. [1]: https://medium.com/@dtxtransitposts/how-much-does-it-actually-cost-to-build-housing-14e5fcf35208. - Source: Hacker News / 5 days ago
  • Our position on open-weights models
    The letter misses out the key issue here. Should the worlds public knowledge be enclosed by a few powerful private companies or should it be available to all? The original vision for the web was a decentralized, open information sharing space designed to empower humanity. In my view the effort to privatise that via LLM distillation is the antithesis of that vision.... - Source: Hacker News / 6 days ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Scrapy and Medium, you can also consider the following products

Apify - Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.

Ghost - Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication. We power blogs, magazines and journalists from Zappos to Sky News.

Octoparse - Octoparse provides easy web scraping for anyone. Our advanced web crawler, allows users to turn web pages into structured spreadsheets within clicks.

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

import.io - Import. io helps its users find the internet data they need, organize and store it, and transform it into a format that provides them with the context they need.

DEV.to - Where software engineers connect, build their resumes, and grow.