head to head · open source
chromium vs BrowserOS
chromium has 24,824 GitHub stars, 9,251 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BrowserOS has 13,718 stars, 1,459 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. chromium leads on adoption by 81% (24,824 vs 13,718 stars). chromium is written in various languages under BSD-3-Clause; BrowserOS is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. chromium has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, BrowserOS 11%. 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 | BrowserOS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 25K | ★ 14K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | — | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.3K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 BrowserOS if
- You want the BrowserOS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and BrowserOS fits your workflow better
About chromium
The official GitHub mirror of the Chromium source — read only snapshot of the codebase behind the Chromium open source browser project, aimed at developers and packagers who need to read, build, or audit browser source rather than end users looking for a browser download.
read the full chromium overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is chromium or BrowserOS more popular?
chromium has 24,824 GitHub stars and BrowserOS has 13,718. chromium has the larger community by that measure.
Are chromium and BrowserOS free?
Both are open source. chromium is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and BrowserOS under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between chromium and BrowserOS?
chromium is written in various languages and BrowserOS in TypeScript. 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 BrowserOS?
Choose chromium if you want the larger community (24,824 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose BrowserOS if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.