v1.3.7 — Actively maintained

The open-source standard for bot detection.

Identify crawlers, spiders, and bots from any user-agent string. Three methods, zero dependencies, one Composer install.

php interactive shell
> $detect = new CrawlerDetect;
> $detect->isCrawler('');
=
> $detect->getMatches();
= ""
>
97M+
Total installs
2.3M
Monthly installs
2,332
GitHub stars
276
Forks

What sets it apart

Not another SaaS dashboard. A single PHP class that does one thing and does it well.

Zero network overhead

Pure regex matching against a local signature database. No API calls, no latency penalty, no third-party dependency.

Thousands of signatures

Community-maintained list of known bots, crawlers, and spiders. Updated regularly with new signatures as they appear in the wild.

Three-method API

isCrawler(), getMatches(), and setUserAgent(). That's the entire surface area. Works standalone or with Laravel, Symfony, and Yii.

Interactive demo

See it in action

Drop in any user-agent string and CrawlerDetect will analyse it in real time. Try it — it's instant.

Examples

Up and running in seconds

One Composer command. No config files, no service providers, no setup.

Install
$ composer require jaybizzle/crawler-detect
Usage
PHP
use Jaybizzle\CrawlerDetect\CrawlerDetect;

// Check the current visitor's user-agent
$detect = new CrawlerDetect();

if ($detect->isCrawler()) {
    // It's a bot
}

// Or pass any user-agent string
$detect->isCrawler('Googlebot/2.1'); // true

// Get the name of the matched bot
$detect->getMatches(); // "Googlebot"

Not just PHP

Community ports bring CrawlerDetect to every major language and runtime.

Built by the community

CrawlerDetect wouldn't exist without its contributors. Thank you to every one of the 87 people who have helped shape this project.

Recent releases

Actively maintained with 169+ releases and counting.

v1.3.7 Feb 2, 2026
View release →
  • GoogleMessages detection
  • Add GoogleMessages to raw files
  • feat(crawlers): add InternetMeasurement and Odin crawler signatures
  • Add workflow to export data after tests
  • Add PHPUnit 7.x and 8.x to version constraint for PHP 7.1/7.2 support
v1.3.6 Sep 30, 2025
View release →
  • Added Mailpit to raw files
  • GitLab detection
v1.3.5 Jun 11, 2025
View release →
  • Added Mailpit Detection