head to head · open source
Browser Use vs anakin
Browser Use has 119,977 GitHub stars, 13,371 forks, 421 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. anakin has 3,879 stars, 164 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Browser Use leads on adoption by 2,993% (119,977 vs 3,879 stars). Browser Use is written in Python under MIT; anakin is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. Browser Use has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, anakin 4%. Browser Use was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (playwright), 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
| Browser Use | anakin | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 120K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 164 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Browser Use if
- You weight community size — 120K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick anakin if
- You want the anakin feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and anakin fits your workflow better
About Browser Use
Navigate the web like a human does. Find an available slot, pick a date and time, handle the CAPTCHA, and book a driving test. Explore more demos and prompts ↗ Which Browser Use do I need? Path 1: Fully Hosted Cloud: Scale up with a fully hosted agent and browser. Path 2: CLI: Automate your own browser tasks. Path 3: Python Library: Run the open source Browser Use agent locally from your own code. Quickstart Path 1: Fully Hosted Cloud Scale browser automation with our hosted agent, stealth browsers, and infrastructure for profiles, recordings, and data policies. Get started with the API ↗ New Google, GitHub, or…
read the full Browser Use overview →
About anakin
AnakinScraper OSS The open source web scraping API for AI. Turn any website into LLM ready markdown or structured data. Self host with a single command. No cloud dependencies. Powers RAG pipelines, AI agents, and data extraction at scale. Why AnakinScraper? Features Handler chain with fallback — HTTP fetch → anti detect browser → external API. Each handler tries in order; if one fails, the next picks up automatically. Most pages resolve on the free local HTTP handler — paid APIs are only called for the 5% that actually need them. Docs → Custom API handlers — plug in any third party scraping service as a chain…
read the full anakin overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Browser Use or anakin more popular?
Browser Use has 119,977 GitHub stars and anakin has 3,879. Browser Use has the larger community by that measure.
Are Browser Use and anakin free?
Both are open source. Browser Use is licensed under MIT and anakin under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Browser Use and anakin?
Browser Use is written in Python and anakin in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Browser Use or anakin?
Choose Browser Use if you want the larger community (119,977 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose anakin if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.