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docs: add "Why opencli?" section and comparison guide#331

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docs: add "Why opencli?" section and comparison guide#331
Astro-Han wants to merge 1 commit intojackwener:mainfrom
Astro-Han:worktree-docs-why-opencli

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Description

Add positioning content to help new visitors understand where opencli fits in the browser automation ecosystem.

Closes #238

Type of Change

  • 🐛 Bug fix
  • ✨ New feature
  • 🌐 New site adapter
  • 📝 Documentation
  • ♻️ Refactor
  • 🔧 CI / build / tooling

Changes

README "Why opencli?" section (both EN and zh-CN)

Added between Highlights and Prerequisites with:

  • User-need comparison table (5 scenarios × best tool recommendation)
  • 4 core differentiators: zero LLM cost, deterministic, 20+ Chinese platforms, 8 desktop apps
  • Link to detailed comparison guide

docs/comparison.md — Comparison Guide

Honest 5-scenario evaluation across 6 tools (Browser-Use, Crawl4AI, Firecrawl, agent-browser, Stagehand, Skyvern):

Scenario opencli fit
Scheduled batch data extraction Best
AI agent site operations Best
Authenticated operations Best
General web browsing & exploration Poor (honest)
Desktop app control Best (unique)

Also includes:

  • Key trade-offs section acknowledging adapter maintenance burden
  • Complementary usage flow diagram
  • Links to developer docs for writing adapters

VitePress sidebar

Added "Comparison" entry under Guide section.

Checklist

  • I ran the checks relevant to this PR
  • I updated tests or docs if needed
  • I included output or screenshots when useful

Documentation (if adding/modifying an adapter)

  • Added doc page under docs/ (new docs/comparison.md)
  • Updated docs/adapters/index.md table (N/A)
  • Updated sidebar in docs/.vitepress/config.mts

Screenshots / Output

N/A — documentation-only changes.

- Add "Why opencli?" section to README.md and README.zh-CN.md
  (between Highlights and Prerequisites)
- Add docs/comparison.md with 5-scenario honest evaluation
- Add Comparison entry to VitePress sidebar
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Preview

README "Why opencli?" section

There are many great browser automation tools. Here's when opencli is the right choice:

Your need Best tool Why
Scheduled data extraction from specific sites opencli Pre-built adapters, deterministic JSON, zero LLM cost
AI agent needs reliable site operations opencli 300+ commands, structured output, sub-second response
Explore an unknown website ad-hoc Browser-Use, Stagehand LLM-driven general browsing for one-off tasks
Large-scale web crawling Crawl4AI, Scrapy Purpose-built for throughput and scale
Control desktop Electron apps from terminal opencli CDP + AppleScript — the only CLI tool that does this

What makes opencli different:

  • Zero LLM cost — No tokens consumed at runtime. Run 10,000 times and pay nothing.
  • Deterministic — 55 sites, 300+ commands. Same command, same output schema, every time.
  • 20+ Chinese platforms — Bilibili, Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, Douban, Weibo, and more — unmatched coverage.
  • 8 desktop apps — Cursor, Codex, Notion, ChatGPT, Discord via CDP — unique in the ecosystem.

docs/comparison.md — Scenario 4 (honest "Poor" rating)

Tool Fit Notes
Browser-Use Best LLM-driven, handles arbitrary websites and flows.
Stagehand Best Clean API for act(), extract(), observe() on any page.
agent-browser Good Token-efficient primitives for AI agents.
Skyvern Good Visual AI that generalizes across sites.
opencli Poor Only works with sites that have pre-built adapters. Cannot handle arbitrary websites.

docs/comparison.md — Complementary usage flow

Has adapter?  ──yes──▶  opencli (fast, free, deterministic)
     │
     no
     │
     ▼
One-off task?  ──yes──▶  Browser-Use / Stagehand (LLM-driven)
     │
     no
     │
     ▼
Recurring?    ──yes──▶  Write an opencli adapter, then use opencli

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[Feature]: 添加 "Why opencli?" 定位段落和竞品对比指南

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