head to head · open source
Browser Use vs rod
Browser Use has 119,857 GitHub stars, 13,358 forks, 421 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rod has 7,143 stars, 489 forks, 212 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Browser Use leads on adoption by 1,578% (119,857 vs 7,143 stars). Browser Use is written in Python under MIT; rod is written in Go under MIT. Browser Use has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, rod 7%. 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 (cdp), 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 | rod | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 120K | ★ 7.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 489 |
| 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 rod if
- You want the rod feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and rod 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 rod
Overview [ ][discord room] Documentation API reference FAQ Rod is a high level driver directly based on DevTools Protocol. It's designed for web automation and scraping for both high level and low level use, senior developers can use the low level packages and functions to easily customize or build up their own version of Rod, the high level functions are just examples to build a default version of Rod. 中文 API 文档 Features Chained context design, intuitive to timeout or cancel the long running task Auto wait elements to be ready Debugging friendly, auto input tracing, remote monitoring headless browser Thread…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Browser Use or rod more popular?
Browser Use has 119,857 GitHub stars and rod has 7,143. Browser Use has the larger community by that measure.
Are Browser Use and rod free?
Both are open source. Browser Use is licensed under MIT and rod under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Browser Use and rod?
Browser Use is written in Python and rod 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 rod?
Choose Browser Use if you want the larger community (119,857 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rod if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.