Open-Source Software Blocks AI Bot Scrapers, Protecting Websites and Data

Xe Iaso has developed Anubis, an open-source tool designed to protect websites from AI bots that scrape data for training models. Launched in January 2025, Anubis has already been downloaded nearly 200,000 times and is being used by notable organizations, including UNESCO, FFmpeg, and GNOME. The software was created after Iaso’s own Git server was overwhelmed by AI bots, a problem that many smaller organizations face. Bots that crawl the web for data can cause servers to slow down or crash, as they indiscriminately collect vast amounts of information. Anubis prevents this by blocking the requests from AI bots, allowing websites to continue functioning without disruption. This tool has gained traction in the open-source community due to its effectiveness in preserving the integrity of small websites and online resources, allowing them to avoid the damage caused by these invasive scraping operations.