python-readability vs newspaper
Python article extraction libraries compared
python-readability and newspaper both extract article content from HTML for Python-based workflows. python-readability focuses on extracting a page’s title and main body, while newspaper also supports news-site crawling and extracts additional article metadata.
python-readability: Extract Main Text from HTML Pages
python-readability extracts an article’s main text and title from an HTML document, reducing navigation and other page clutter. It is a Python library for applications that need readable page content, with a command-line option for local files and URLs.
newspaper: Extract News Articles and Metadata in Python
Newspaper3k is a Python library for crawling news sites and extracting article text, metadata, images, keywords, and summaries. It suits developers building news aggregation, monitoring, or text-processing workflows.
| python-readability | newspaper | |
|---|---|---|
| Language | HTML | Python |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Stars | 2.9k | 15.2k |
| Forks | 352 | 2.1k |
| Last analyzed | Oct 3, 2026 | Oct 3, 2026 |
Key differences
- python-readability centers on extracting a document’s title and main body as HTML; newspaper adds publication crawling, article discovery, and category URL identification.
- newspaper extracts fields such as publication date, keywords, and summaries, while python-readability offers article metadata and image-handling options.
- python-readability supports HTML input and encoding detection for byte input; newspaper can download and parse article URLs or process already-fetched HTML.
- python-readability is licensed under Apache-2.0; newspaper is licensed under MIT.
- python-readability includes fixtures and benchmark tooling for comparing extraction results; newspaper supports multiple languages and threaded downloads from multiple sources.
- Both projects’ extraction quality can depend on page structure; newspaper also notes that crawling at scale may encounter site rate limits or blocks.
Choose python-readability if you…
- need a focused library to extract a page’s title and main body as HTML.
- want a command-line option for processing a local HTML file or URL.
- need fixtures and benchmark tooling to compare extraction changes.
Choose newspaper if you…
- need to discover and crawl article URLs from known news publications.
- want article fields such as publication dates, keywords, and generated summaries.
- need multilingual support or threaded downloads from multiple sources.
Compare the numbers side by side, or add more projects
This comparison is generated with AI from the OSRepos analyses of both projects. Always check each project's repository and documentation before choosing.