Search crypto arbitrage bot on GitHub and you'll find thousands of repositories — from serious, battle-tested frameworks to abandoned experiments and outright traps. Knowing how to tell them apart is the difference between a useful tool and a drained wallet.
This guide covers the arbitrage bots actually worth knowing on GitHub, exactly how to vet a repo before you run it, the red flags that scream "scam," and how ArbiScreen gives you a maintained, zero-audit alternative when you don't want to trust random code.
Check 5
Signals before running
Audit
Code before API keys
Looking for a crypto arbitrage bot on GitHub? This guide rounds up the best crypto arbitrage GitHub repositories, shows how to vet them, and flags the red flags to check before you run any open-source crypto arbitrage bot GitHub project.
Notable Arbitrage Bots on GitHub
A handful of projects stand out for being genuinely maintained and widely used. These are frameworks you configure, not magic money buttons:
| Repo | What it is | Watch for |
|---|
| Hummingbot | Popular open-source market-making & arbitrage framework | Config learning curve |
| Freqtrade | Python trading bot with backtesting; strategy-driven | Not arbitrage-specific |
| ccxt | The library most bots are built on — not a bot itself | You build the logic |
| Generic 'arb-bot' repos | Thousands of small forks and experiments | Often stale / unsafe |
How to Vet a GitHub Repo Before You Trust It
Anyone can publish code. Before you connect a repo to your exchange account, run through this checklist:
1
Stars & forks — real usage. Thousands of stars beats a repo with three.
2
Last commit date — active maintenance. A bot untouched for two years is a liability.
3
Open vs closed issues — are bugs being fixed, or ignored?
4
Read the actual code — especially anything touching API keys, withdrawals or external URLs.
5
Check the license & maintainers — a named team and real license beat an anonymous dump.
🚨 Red flags that mean "close the tab"
Walk away if a repo: asks for withdrawal-enabled API keys or your seed phrase; ships obfuscated or minified "source"; promises guaranteed profit; or tells you to send crypto to an address to "activate" it. Legit open-source bots never need any of these.
The Hidden Cost of "Free" GitHub Bots
Even a good repo isn't free of effort. You'll spend real time on setup (dependencies, config, API connections), need a server to run it 24/7, and must maintain it as exchanges change their APIs. "Free" means free of licence fees — not free of work.
How ArbiScreen Fits In — Free, and Every Exchange at Once
Auditing code, hosting a server and keeping a fork alive is a lot of overhead just to answer one question: where is a real gap right now? A hosted scanner answers that with nothing to install or trust with keys.
ArbiScreen takes the hardest part off your plate: the monitoring. It tracks 17 exchanges simultaneously — Binance, Bybit, OKX, KuCoin, MEXC, Gate.io, HTX, Bitget, Kraken and regional venues — compares every coin across all of them, and ranks the widest live spreads net of fees. No bot can profit from a gap it never saw; ArbiScreen makes sure you see them all.
✅ A scanner does the watching; you (or your bot) do the trading
Whether you run a Telegram alert bot, a Python script, or an open-source project, they all need the same thing first: accurate, real-time cross-exchange data. ArbiScreen is that data layer — free to start, covering all 17 venues — so your automation acts on real gaps instead of stale prices.
Explore the other ways to run an arbitrage bot:
Frequently Asked Questions
Are GitHub arbitrage bots safe to use?▼
The well-maintained, popular ones (like Hummingbot) can be, if you read the code and use trade-only API keys. Random low-star repos are risky — many are abandoned, buggy, or deliberately malicious. Always vet before running.
What's the best arbitrage bot on GitHub?▼
Hummingbot is the most established open-source option for market-making and arbitrage; Freqtrade is a strong general trading bot with backtesting. Both are frameworks you configure, not turnkey profit machines.
Is ccxt a bot?▼
No — ccxt is a library that connects to 100+ exchanges. It's the foundation most Python arbitrage bots are built on, but you (or a project) still write the trading logic around it.
How do I know a repo isn't a scam?▼
Check stars, recent commits and open issues; read the code touching keys and network calls; and never run anything that wants withdrawal-enabled keys, your seed phrase, or a payment to 'activate.'
Do I still need a scanner if I use a GitHub bot?▼
Yes — a bot needs accurate cross-exchange data to act on. ArbiScreen supplies that across 17 exchanges, so your self-hosted bot trades on real gaps rather than stale or incomplete prices.
Don't want to audit code? Just watch the gaps.
ArbiScreen ranks live cross-exchange spreads across 17 venues — nothing to install, no keys to hand over.