head to head · open source
CloakBrowser vs patchright-nodejs
CloakBrowser has 31,578 GitHub stars, 2,615 forks, 227 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. patchright-nodejs has 786 stars, 50 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. CloakBrowser leads on adoption by 3,918% (31,578 vs 786 stars). CloakBrowser is written in Python under MIT; patchright-nodejs is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. CloakBrowser has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, patchright-nodejs 6%. CloakBrowser was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (chromium, cloudflare, cloudflare-bypass, playwright), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| CloakBrowser | patchright-nodejs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 786 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 50 |
| 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 patchright-nodejs if
- You want the patchright-nodejs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and patchright-nodejs 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 patchright-nodejs
Patchright for Node.js is a patched, undetected drop in replacement for the Playwright browser automation framework, built in TypeScript for Node.js developers whose scraping, testing, and automation jobs get blocked by bot detection.
read the full patchright-nodejs overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is CloakBrowser or patchright-nodejs more popular?
CloakBrowser has 31,578 GitHub stars and patchright-nodejs has 786. CloakBrowser has the larger community by that measure.
Are CloakBrowser and patchright-nodejs free?
Both are open source. CloakBrowser is licensed under MIT and patchright-nodejs under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between CloakBrowser and patchright-nodejs?
CloakBrowser is written in Python and patchright-nodejs in TypeScript. 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 patchright-nodejs?
Choose CloakBrowser if you want the larger community (31,578 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose patchright-nodejs if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.