head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs Automa
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Automa has 21,705 stars, 2,344 forks, 377 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 88% (40,882 vs 21,705 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; Automa is written in Vue under a custom or non-standard licence. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Automa 11%. Lightpanda was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser-automation), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Lightpanda | Automa | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 22K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Zig | Vue |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-03-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Automa if
- You want the Automa feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You evaluated both and Automa fits your workflow better
About Lightpanda
Lightpanda Browser The headless browser built from scratch for AI agents and automation. Not a Chromium fork. Not a WebKit patch. A new browser, written in Zig.   Benchmarks Requesting 933 real web pages over the network on a AWS EC2 m5.large instance. See benchmark details. Quick start Install Package Managers Latest nightly from Homebrew: Latest nightly from Arch Linux User Repository: Download from the nightly builds You can download the last binary from the nightly builds for Linux and MacOS for both x86 64 and aarch64. For Linux Verify the binary before running anything: Linux aarch64 is also available…
read the full Lightpanda overview →
About Automa
Automa An extension for automating your browser by connecting blocks. Auto fill forms, do a repetitive task, take a screenshot, or scrape website data — the choice is yours. You can even schedule when the automation will execute! Downloads Chrome Web Store Firefox Add ons Marketplace Browse the Automa marketplace where you can share and download workflows with others. Go to the marketplace & 187; Automa Chrome Extension Builder Automa Chrome Extension Builder (Automa CEB for short) allows you to generate a standalone chrome extension based on Automa workflows. Go to the documentation & 187; Project setup Before…
read the full Automa overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or Automa more popular?
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars and Automa has 21,705. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and Automa free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Automa has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and Automa?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and Automa in Vue. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lightpanda or Automa?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (40,882 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Automa if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.