head to head · open source
Browser Use vs cadence
Browser Use has 114,959 GitHub stars, 12,651 forks, 421 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. cadence has 9,444 stars, 913 forks, 205 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Browser Use leads on adoption by 1,117% (114,959 vs 9,444 stars). Browser Use is written in Python under MIT; cadence is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Browser Use has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, cadence 10%. cadence was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | cadence | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 115K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 913 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Browser Use if
- You weight community size — 115K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cadence if
- You want the cadence feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and cadence fits your workflow better
About Browser Use
Browser Use is an open source Python library and hosted platform that enables AI agents to control web browsers programmatically. It lives in the AI agent and browser automation ecosystem, built on Playwright and designed to let LLMs interact with websites as a human would—clicking, filling forms, solving CAPTCHAs, and navigating dynamic interfaces. The project provides three deployment paths: a fully hosted cloud service, a command line interface for existing agents, and a local Python library for custom integrations.
read the full Browser Use overview →
About cadence
Cadence is an open source orchestration engine for running asynchronous, long running business logic in a fault tolerant way. Written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license, it lives in the distributed systems and workflow automation space, and the project has been open source since 2017. This repository holds the core engine plus supporting tools: the CLI, schema management, a benchmark suite, and a canary. Client libraries for Go and Java are official, while Python and Ruby SDKs come from the community, and iWF can be layered on top as a DSL framework.
read the full cadence overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Browser Use or cadence more popular?
Browser Use has 114,959 GitHub stars and cadence has 9,444. Browser Use has the larger community by that measure.
Are Browser Use and cadence free?
Both are open source. Browser Use is licensed under MIT and cadence under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Browser Use and cadence?
Browser Use is written in Python and cadence 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 cadence?
Choose Browser Use if you want the larger community (114,959 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose cadence if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.