How to install Scrapy on Ubuntu or Debian

Scrapy is a Python-based scraping and web crawling program and is generally available as a pip package. However, some Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Debian have Scrapy in its default package repository and can be installed via apt.

Ubuntu version of Scrapy is more tightly integrated with the operating system. It installs to the default application path, and you don't need to install additional tools such as pip to have Scrapy installed.

However, the installed version is normally tied to the distribution version, so you won't get the latest version of Scrapy unless you upgrade your Ubuntu or Debian version.

Scrapy can be installed on Ubuntu and Debian using apt at the terminal.

1. Launch terminal application.
2. Update apt's package list from repository.

   $ sudo apt update
   [sudo] password for user: 
   Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu impish InRelease
   Hit:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu impish-security InRelease
   Hit:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu impish-updates InRelease
   Hit:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu impish-backports InRelease
   Reading package lists... Done
   Building dependency tree... Done
   Reading state information... Done
   All packages are up to date.

3. Install python3-scrapy package using apt.

   $ sudo apt install --assume-yes python3-scrapy
   Reading package lists... Done
   Building dependency tree... Done
   Reading state information... Done
   The following additional packages will be installed:
     ipython3 libmysqlclient21 mysql-common python3-attr python3-automat
     python3-backcall python3-boto python3-bs4 python3-constantly
     python3-cssselect python3-decorator python3-hamcrest python3-html5lib
     python3-hyperlink python3-incremental python3-ipython
     python3-ipython-genutils python3-itemadapter python3-itemloaders
     python3-jedi python3-jmespath python3-libxml2 python3-lxml python3-mysqldb
     python3-openssl python3-parsel python3-parso python3-pickleshare
     python3-prompt-toolkit python3-protego python3-pyasn1
     python3-pyasn1-modules python3-pydispatch python3-pygments python3-queuelib
     python3-service-identity python3-soupsieve python3-traitlets
     python3-twisted python3-twisted-bin python3-w3lib python3-wcwidth
     python3-webencodings python3-zope.interface
   Suggested packages:
     python-attr-doc python3-genshi python-ipython-doc python3-lxml-dbg
     python-lxml-doc default-mysql-server | virtual-mysql-server
     python3-mysqldb-dbg python-openssl-doc python3-openssl-dbg
     python-pydispatch-doc python-pygments-doc ttf-bitstream-vera
     python-scrapy-doc python3-tk python3-pampy python3-qt4 python3-serial
     python3-wxgtk2.8 python3-twisted-bin-dbg
   The following NEW packages will be installed:
     ipython3 libmysqlclient21 mysql-common python3-attr python3-automat
     python3-backcall python3-boto python3-bs4 python3-constantly
     python3-cssselect python3-decorator python3-hamcrest python3-html5lib
     python3-hyperlink python3-incremental python3-ipython
     python3-ipython-genutils python3-itemadapter python3-itemloaders
     python3-jedi python3-jmespath python3-libxml2 python3-lxml python3-mysqldb
     python3-openssl python3-parsel python3-parso python3-pickleshare
     python3-prompt-toolkit python3-protego python3-pyasn1
     python3-pyasn1-modules python3-pydispatch python3-pygments python3-queuelib
     python3-scrapy python3-service-identity python3-soupsieve python3-traitlets
     python3-twisted python3-twisted-bin python3-w3lib python3-wcwidth
     python3-webencodings python3-zope.interface
   0 upgraded, 45 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
   Need to get 8,382 kB of archives.
   After this operation, 49.4 MB of additional disk space will be used.
   ##### snipped

4. Run scrapy command at the terminal to test if installation has completed successfully.

   $ scrapy
   Scrapy 2.4.1 - no active project
   
   Usage:
     scrapy <command> [options] [args]
   
   Available commands:
     bench         Run quick benchmark test
     commands      
     fetch         Fetch a URL using the Scrapy downloader
     genspider     Generate new spider using pre-defined templates
     runspider     Run a self-contained spider (without creating a project)
     settings      Get settings values
     shell         Interactive scraping console
     startproject  Create new project
     version       Print Scrapy version
     view          Open URL in browser, as seen by Scrapy
   
     [ more ]      More commands available when run from project directory
   
   Use "scrapy <command> -h" to see more info about a command