head to head · open source
BrowserOS vs Thorium-Android
BrowserOS has 13,718 GitHub stars, 1,459 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Thorium-Android has 785 stars, 12 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 28 days ago. BrowserOS leads on adoption by 1,648% (13,718 vs 785 stars). BrowserOS is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Thorium-Android is written in various languages under BSD-3-Clause. BrowserOS has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Thorium-Android 2%. BrowserOS was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chromium), 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
| BrowserOS | Thorium-Android | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 785 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | — |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-08-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 12 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick BrowserOS if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Thorium-Android if
- You want the Thorium-Android feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- You evaluated both and Thorium-Android fits your workflow better
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 →
About Thorium-Android
Thorium Android is a repository that serves builds of Thorium for Android. It supports both arm32 and arm64 architectures, and the README describes it as a separate repository for Android builds. The project lives in the Android and Chromium ecosystem, because Thorium is a browser, the repository is categorized under Browsers & Extensions, and the topic list includes chromium.
read the full Thorium-Android overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is BrowserOS or Thorium-Android more popular?
BrowserOS has 13,718 GitHub stars and Thorium-Android has 785. BrowserOS has the larger community by that measure.
Are BrowserOS and Thorium-Android free?
Both are open source. BrowserOS is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Thorium-Android under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BrowserOS and Thorium-Android?
BrowserOS is written in TypeScript and Thorium-Android in various languages. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, BrowserOS or Thorium-Android?
Choose BrowserOS if you want the larger community (13,718 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Thorium-Android if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.