head to head · open source
CloakBrowser vs ketch
CloakBrowser has 31,578 GitHub stars, 2,615 forks, 227 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. ketch has 596 stars, 36 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. CloakBrowser leads on adoption by 5,198% (31,578 vs 596 stars). CloakBrowser is written in Python under MIT; ketch is written in Go under MIT. CloakBrowser has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, ketch 6%. ketch was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), 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 | ketch | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 596 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 36 |
| 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 ketch if
- You want the ketch feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ketch 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 ketch
ketch is a stateless command line tool that performs web search, code search, library documentation lookup, and page scraping from one Go binary, built for both people working in a terminal and the AI agents they build.
read the full ketch overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is CloakBrowser or ketch more popular?
CloakBrowser has 31,578 GitHub stars and ketch has 596. CloakBrowser has the larger community by that measure.
Are CloakBrowser and ketch free?
Both are open source. CloakBrowser is licensed under MIT and ketch under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between CloakBrowser and ketch?
CloakBrowser is written in Python and ketch 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 ketch?
Choose CloakBrowser if you want the larger community (31,578 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ketch if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.