head to head · open source
servo vs chromium
servo has 38,301 GitHub stars, 3,865 forks, 3,209 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chromium has 25,223 stars, 9,398 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped yesterday. servo leads on adoption by 52% (38,301 vs 25,223 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 9.4K |
| 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
The Servo Parallel Browser Engine Project Servo is a prototype web browser engine written in the Rust language. It is currently developed on 64 bit macOS, 64 bit Linux, 64 bit Windows, 64 bit OpenHarmony, and Android. Servo welcomes contribution from everyone. Check out: The Servo Book for documentation servo.org for news and guides Coordination of Servo development happens: Here in the Github Issues On the Servo Zulip In video calls advertised in the Servo Project repo. Getting started For more detailed build instructions, see the Servo Book under [Getting the Code] and [Building Servo]. [Getting the Code]…
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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 servo or chromium more popular?
servo has 38,301 GitHub stars and chromium has 25,223. 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 (38,301 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.