head to head · open source
serenity vs chromium
serenity has 33,938 GitHub stars, 3,488 forks, 739 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chromium has 25,223 stars, 9,398 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. serenity leads on adoption by 35% (33,938 vs 25,223 stars). serenity is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; chromium is written in various languages under BSD-3-Clause. serenity has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, chromium 37%. chromium was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| serenity | chromium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 25K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | C++ | — |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 9.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick serenity if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick chromium if
- You want the chromium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- You evaluated both and chromium fits your workflow better
About serenity
SerenityOS Graphical Unix like operating system for 64 bit x86, Arm, and RISC V computers. FAQ Documentation Build Instructions About SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom Unix like core. It flatters with sincerity by stealing beautiful ideas from various other systems. Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of late 1990s productivity software and the power user accessibility of late 2000s \ nix. This is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like. You can watch videos of the system being developed on YouTube: Andreas Kling's channel Linus Groh's…
read the full serenity overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is serenity or chromium more popular?
serenity has 33,938 GitHub stars and chromium has 25,223. serenity has the larger community by that measure.
Are serenity and chromium free?
Both are open source. serenity is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and chromium under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between serenity and chromium?
serenity is written in C++ and chromium 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, serenity or chromium?
Choose serenity if you want the larger community (33,938 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose chromium if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.