head to head · open source
servo vs chromium
servo has 38,001 GitHub stars, 3,798 forks, 3,209 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chromium has 24,799 stars, 9,244 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. servo leads on adoption by 53% (38,001 vs 24,799 stars). servo is written in Rust under MPL-2.0; chromium is written in various languages under BSD-3-Clause. servo 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
| servo | chromium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 25K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Rust | — |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 9.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick servo if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- 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 servo
Servo is a prototype web browser engine written in the Rust programming language. It is developed on 64 bit macOS, 64 bit Linux, 64 bit Windows, 64 bit OpenHarmony, and Android, and it lives in the Rust ecosystem as an open source project licensed under MPL 2.0. The repository carries the topics browser, rust, servo, web, webbrowser, webengine, and webplatform, and the project describes itself as aiming to empower developers with a lightweight, high performance alternative for embedding web technologies in applications. Documentation lives in the Servo Book, with news and guides at servo.org.
read the full servo overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is servo or chromium more popular?
servo has 38,001 GitHub stars and chromium has 24,799. servo has the larger community by that measure.
Are servo and chromium free?
Both are open source. servo is licensed under MPL-2.0 and chromium under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between servo and chromium?
servo is written in Rust 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, servo or chromium?
Choose servo if you want the larger community (38,001 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose chromium if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.