head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs firecrawl-mcp-server
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars, 1,684 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. firecrawl-mcp-server has 7,489 stars, 891 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped today. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 373% (35,452 vs 7,489 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; firecrawl-mcp-server is written in JavaScript under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, firecrawl-mcp-server 12%. firecrawl-mcp-server was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Lightpanda | firecrawl-mcp-server | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 7.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 891 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 35K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick firecrawl-mcp-server if
- You want the firecrawl-mcp-server feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and firecrawl-mcp-server fits your workflow better
About Lightpanda
Lightpanda is a headless browser built from scratch in Zig, designed specifically for AI agents and automation tasks. It is not a fork of Chromium or WebKit but a new implementation targeting performance and efficiency in automated web interactions. It lives in the browser automation ecosystem, competing with tools like Puppeteer and Playwright that typically rely on Chromium based headless modes.
read the full Lightpanda overview →
About firecrawl-mcp-server
Firecrawl MCP Server is the official Model Context Protocol server that gives Cursor, Claude, and other MCP compatible AI clients search, scraping, and page interaction against the live web.
read the full firecrawl-mcp-server overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or firecrawl-mcp-server more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars and firecrawl-mcp-server has 7,489. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and firecrawl-mcp-server free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and firecrawl-mcp-server under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and firecrawl-mcp-server?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and firecrawl-mcp-server 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, Lightpanda or firecrawl-mcp-server?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,452 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose firecrawl-mcp-server if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.