head to head · open source
CloakBrowser vs ferret
CloakBrowser has 31,578 GitHub stars, 2,615 forks, 227 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. ferret has 6,013 stars, 324 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. CloakBrowser leads on adoption by 425% (31,578 vs 6,013 stars). CloakBrowser is written in Python under MIT; ferret is written in Go under Apache-2.0. CloakBrowser has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, ferret 5%. CloakBrowser was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser-automation), 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
| CloakBrowser | ferret | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 324 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick CloakBrowser if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ferret if
- You want the ferret feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ferret fits your workflow better
About CloakBrowser
CloakBrowser is a stealth Chromium build for Python and JavaScript teams that need browser automation to survive bot detection systems, aimed at scraping and AI agent engineers who want to replace Playwright or Puppeteer without rewriting their code.
read the full CloakBrowser overview →
About ferret
Ferret is a declarative data automation language and embeddable Go runtime for structured extraction workflows, built for Go developers who need to query, transform, and synchronize structured data across browsers, APIs, databases, and documents from inside their own applications.
read the full ferret overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is CloakBrowser or ferret more popular?
CloakBrowser has 31,578 GitHub stars and ferret has 6,013. CloakBrowser has the larger community by that measure.
Are CloakBrowser and ferret free?
Both are open source. CloakBrowser is licensed under MIT and ferret under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between CloakBrowser and ferret?
CloakBrowser is written in Python and ferret in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, CloakBrowser or ferret?
Choose CloakBrowser if you want the larger community (31,578 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ferret if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.