head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs changedetection.io
Lightpanda has 41,174 GitHub stars, 2,024 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. changedetection.io has 35,492 stars, 2,202 forks, 385 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 16% (41,174 vs 35,492 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; changedetection.io is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, changedetection.io 6%. Lightpanda 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Lightpanda | changedetection.io | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 35K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 2.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick changedetection.io if
- You want the changedetection.io feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and changedetection.io fits your workflow better
About Lightpanda
Lightpanda Browser The headless browser built from scratch for AI agents and automation. Not a Chromium fork. Not a WebKit patch. A new browser, written in Zig.   Benchmarks Requesting 933 real web pages over the network on a AWS EC2 m5.large instance. See benchmark details. Quick start Install Package Managers Latest nightly from Homebrew: Latest nightly from Arch Linux User Repository: Download from the nightly builds You can download the last binary from the nightly builds for Linux and MacOS for both x86 64 and aarch64. For Linux Verify the binary before running anything: Linux aarch64 is also available…
read the full Lightpanda overview →
About changedetection.io
Detect Website Changes Automatically — Monitor Web Page Changes in Real Time Monitor websites for updates — get notified via Discord, Email, Slack, Telegram, Webhook and many more. Detect web page content changes and get instant alerts. Ideal for monitoring price changes, content edits, conditional changes and more. [![Release Version][release shield]][release link] [![Docker Pulls][docker pulls]][docker link] [![License][license shield]](LICENSE.md) Get started with website page change monitoring straight away. Don't have time? Try our $8.99/month subscription, use our proxies and support! , half the price of…
read the full changedetection.io overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or changedetection.io more popular?
Lightpanda has 41,174 GitHub stars and changedetection.io has 35,492. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and changedetection.io free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and changedetection.io under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and changedetection.io?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and changedetection.io in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lightpanda or changedetection.io?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (41,174 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose changedetection.io if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.