head to head · open source
Ladybird vs Harper
Ladybird has 66,237 GitHub stars, 3,163 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harper has 15,469 stars, 632 forks, 896 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ladybird leads on adoption by 328% (66,237 vs 15,469 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; Harper is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Harper 4%. Ladybird 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
| Ladybird | Harper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 15K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 632 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ladybird if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Harper if
- You want the Harper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Harper fits your workflow better
About Ladybird
Ladybird is a truly independent web browser and browser engine, written from scratch in C++ rather than as a fork of any existing engine, and it is built for developers who want to work on a browser engine based on web standards while it remains in a pre alpha state.
read the full Ladybird overview →
About Harper
Harper is offline, privacy first grammar checker for English. It lives in productivity, browser extension, developer tools, and text editing ecosystem. Project is open source under Apache 2.0. GitHub metadata shows 15373 stars, 627 forks, and 896 open issues. Last push is 2026 09 14. Category is Productivity & Utilities / Browsers & Extensions. It uses Rust for core, WebAssembly for browser loading, language server for editors, JavaScript package for web and Node.js apps. It solves slow, costly, network dependent grammar checking. It replaces Grammarly and LanguageTool as named in README. Grammarly sends writing …
read the full Harper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or Harper more popular?
Ladybird has 66,237 GitHub stars and Harper has 15,469. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and Harper free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Harper under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and Harper?
Ladybird is written in C++ and Harper in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Ladybird or Harper?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,237 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose Harper if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.