head to head · open source
Brave vs BrowserOS
Brave has 23,676 GitHub stars, 3,216 forks, 10,752 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BrowserOS has 13,718 stars, 1,459 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Brave leads on adoption by 73% (23,676 vs 13,718 stars). Brave is written in various languages under MPL-2.0; BrowserOS is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Brave has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, BrowserOS 11%. Brave was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 5 topic tags (browser, chromium, linux, macos), 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.
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Side by side
| Brave | BrowserOS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 14K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | — | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Brave if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick BrowserOS if
- You want the BrowserOS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and BrowserOS fits your workflow better
About Brave
Brave is a Chromium based web browser for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, released under the MPL 2.0 licence, and this repository is the project's public issue tracker, release channel, and developer wiki rather than the home of its source code.
read the full Brave overview →
About BrowserOS
BrowserOS is an open source agentic browser, written in TypeScript under AGPL 3.0, that puts AI agents inside a real Chromium browser on the user's own machine so they can work with real logged in accounts, and it is aimed at people who already use an agent harness such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or any MCP agent and want that agent to handle web tasks instead of a sandbox.
read the full BrowserOS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Brave or BrowserOS more popular?
Brave has 23,676 GitHub stars and BrowserOS has 13,718. Brave has the larger community by that measure.
Are Brave and BrowserOS free?
Both are open source. Brave is licensed under MPL-2.0 and BrowserOS under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Brave and BrowserOS?
Brave is written in various languages and BrowserOS in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Brave or BrowserOS?
Choose Brave if you want the larger community (23,676 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose BrowserOS if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.