head to head · open source
ego-lite vs BrowserOS
ego-lite has 16,117 GitHub stars, 844 forks, 169 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BrowserOS has 13,700 stars, 1,454 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ego-lite leads on adoption by 18% (16,117 vs 13,700 stars). ego-lite is written in JavaScript under MIT; BrowserOS is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. ego-lite has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, BrowserOS 11%. BrowserOS was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| ego-lite | BrowserOS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 844 | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick ego-lite if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick BrowserOS if
- You want the BrowserOS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and BrowserOS fits your workflow better
About ego-lite
ego lite is an MIT licensed browser from citrolabs that lets a person and their AI agents drive the same browser in parallel, aimed at developers who want Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or a custom agent CLI to automate real, logged in web pages without surrendering the tabs they are using.
read the full ego-lite overview →
About BrowserOS
BrowserOS is an open source agentic browser, written in TypeScript under AGPL 3.0, that puts AI agents inside a real Chromium browser on the user's own machine so they can work with real logged in accounts, and it is aimed at people who already use an agent harness such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or any MCP agent and want that agent to handle web tasks instead of a sandbox.
read the full BrowserOS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is ego-lite or BrowserOS more popular?
ego-lite has 16,117 GitHub stars and BrowserOS has 13,700. ego-lite has the larger community by that measure.
Are ego-lite and BrowserOS free?
Both are open source. ego-lite is licensed under MIT and BrowserOS under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between ego-lite and BrowserOS?
ego-lite is written in JavaScript and BrowserOS 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, ego-lite or BrowserOS?
Choose ego-lite if you want the larger community (16,117 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose BrowserOS if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.