head to head · open source
CloakBrowser vs workflow-use
CloakBrowser has 31,638 GitHub stars, 2,625 forks, 229 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. workflow-use has 4,184 stars, 353 forks, 61 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. CloakBrowser leads on adoption by 656% (31,638 vs 4,184 stars). CloakBrowser is written in Python under MIT; workflow-use is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. CloakBrowser has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, workflow-use 8%. 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 | workflow-use | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 353 |
| 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 workflow-use if
- You want the workflow-use feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and workflow-use 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 workflow-use
Workflow Use is a Python, AGPL 3.0 licensed tool for creating and executing deterministic browser workflows — captured by demonstration or generated from a natural language prompt — that fall back to Browser Use whenever a recorded step fails, and it is aimed at developers and automation teams that need repeatable web tasks rather than one off AI agent runs.
read the full workflow-use overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is CloakBrowser or workflow-use more popular?
CloakBrowser has 31,638 GitHub stars and workflow-use has 4,184. CloakBrowser has the larger community by that measure.
Are CloakBrowser and workflow-use free?
Both are open source. CloakBrowser is licensed under MIT and workflow-use under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between CloakBrowser and workflow-use?
CloakBrowser is written in Python and workflow-use in Python. 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 workflow-use?
Choose CloakBrowser if you want the larger community (31,638 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose workflow-use if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.