head to head · open source
obscura vs ego-lite
obscura has 30,141 GitHub stars, 2,279 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ego-lite has 21,332 stars, 1,193 forks, 169 open issues and last shipped yesterday. obscura leads on adoption by 41% (30,141 vs 21,332 stars). obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; ego-lite is written in JavaScript under MIT. obscura has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, ego-lite 6%. obscura was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (browser, 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
| obscura | ego-lite | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 21K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick obscura if
- You weight community size — 30K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ego-lite if
- You want the ego-lite feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and ego-lite fits your workflow better
About obscura
Obscura The open source headless browser for AI agents and web scraping. Lightweight, stealthy, and built in Rust. Native rendering is here. No Chromium required. 🎉 Capture screenshots, screencast live pages, and export PDFs directly with Obscura. Obscura is a headless browser engine written in Rust, built for web scraping and AI agent automation. It runs real JavaScript via V8, supports the Chrome DevTools Protocol, and acts as a drop in replacement for headless Chrome with Puppeteer and Playwright. Why Obscura over headless Chrome? Obscura inspired Cloudflare Kitesurf’s first prototype Cloudflare began by…
read the full obscura overview →
About ego-lite
The fastest browser for AI agents to run browser automation ego (lite) is a browser where you and your AI agents work in parallel. Your agents run multiple browser tasks in their own Spaces while your tabs stay yours, and tasks complete faster on fewer tokens. Existing tools like browser use and agent browser are browser automation frameworks: they need a separate browser to drive, logins never carry cleanly, and you and the agent end up fighting for the same tabs. ego lite is one browser designed from the start for the two of you to share. No extra setup, and the agent can always reach your real logins and tabs…
read the full ego-lite overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obscura or ego-lite more popular?
obscura has 30,141 GitHub stars and ego-lite has 21,332. obscura has the larger community by that measure.
Are obscura and ego-lite free?
Both are open source. obscura is licensed under Apache-2.0 and ego-lite under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obscura and ego-lite?
obscura is written in Rust and ego-lite in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, obscura or ego-lite?
Choose obscura if you want the larger community (30,141 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose ego-lite if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.