head to head · open source
CloakBrowser vs stagehand
CloakBrowser has 31,528 GitHub stars, 2,612 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. stagehand has 24,322 stars, 1,685 forks, 376 open issues and last shipped yesterday. CloakBrowser leads on adoption by 30% (31,528 vs 24,322 stars). CloakBrowser is written in Python under MIT; stagehand is written in TypeScript under MIT. CloakBrowser has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, stagehand 7%. stagehand was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-agents, browser-automation, 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.
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Side by side
| CloakBrowser | stagehand | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 24K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 stagehand if
- You want the stagehand feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and stagehand 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 stagehand
Stagehand is the MIT licensed SDK for extracting data and interacting with any site on the web, available in TypeScript, Python, and Go, and aimed at developers building AI agents that need to drive a browser the way a person does rather than at engineers writing test suites.
read the full stagehand overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is CloakBrowser or stagehand more popular?
CloakBrowser has 31,528 GitHub stars and stagehand has 24,322. CloakBrowser has the larger community by that measure.
Are CloakBrowser and stagehand free?
Both are open source. CloakBrowser is licensed under MIT and stagehand under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between CloakBrowser and stagehand?
CloakBrowser is written in Python and stagehand 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 stagehand?
Choose CloakBrowser if you want the larger community (31,528 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose stagehand if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.