head to head · open source
chromium vs Brave
chromium has 25,235 GitHub stars, 9,398 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Brave has 24,097 stars, 3,270 forks, 10,752 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chromium leads on adoption by 5% (25,235 vs 24,097 stars). chromium is written in various languages under BSD-3-Clause; Brave is written in various languages under MPL-2.0. chromium has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, Brave 14%. chromium was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (browser, 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
| chromium | Brave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 24K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | — | — |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.4K | ⑂ 3.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick chromium if
- You weight community size — 25K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Brave if
- You want the Brave feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- You evaluated both and Brave fits your workflow better
About chromium
Chromium Chromium is an open source browser project that aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all users to experience the web. The project's web site is To check out the source code locally, don't use git clone ! Instead, follow the instructions on how to get the code. Documentation in the source is rooted in docs/README.md. Learn how to Get Around the Chromium Source Code Directory Structure. For historical reasons, there are some small top level directories. Now the guidance is that new top level directories are for product (e.g. Chrome, Android WebView, Ash). Even if these products have…
read the full chromium overview →
About Brave
Brave Browser This repository is not needed for building the browser and only holds issues, releases and the wiki. The source code and contributions are at You can visit our website to get the latest stable release. Resources Issues: Bug reports and feature requests for the Brave Browser. Releases: Releases of Brave Browser hosted on GitHub. See Brave Release Schedule for more information. Wiki: Documentation for developers, administrators, and power users. User facing documentation is available at the Brave help center. Documentation and guides: Additional technical information, primarily for developers…
read the full Brave overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is chromium or Brave more popular?
chromium has 25,235 GitHub stars and Brave has 24,097. chromium has the larger community by that measure.
Are chromium and Brave free?
Both are open source. chromium is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Brave under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between chromium and Brave?
chromium is written in various languages and Brave 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, chromium or Brave?
Choose chromium if you want the larger community (25,235 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose Brave if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.