head to head · open source
servo vs Harper
servo has 38,001 GitHub stars, 3,798 forks, 3,209 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harper has 15,469 stars, 632 forks, 896 open issues and last shipped yesterday. servo leads on adoption by 146% (38,001 vs 15,469 stars). servo is written in Rust under MPL-2.0; Harper is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. servo has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Harper 4%. servo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (rust), 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
| servo | Harper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 15K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 632 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick servo if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- 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 servo
Servo is a prototype web browser engine written in the Rust programming language. It is developed on 64 bit macOS, 64 bit Linux, 64 bit Windows, 64 bit OpenHarmony, and Android, and it lives in the Rust ecosystem as an open source project licensed under MPL 2.0. The repository carries the topics browser, rust, servo, web, webbrowser, webengine, and webplatform, and the project describes itself as aiming to empower developers with a lightweight, high performance alternative for embedding web technologies in applications. Documentation lives in the Servo Book, with news and guides at servo.org.
read the full servo 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 servo or Harper more popular?
servo has 38,001 GitHub stars and Harper has 15,469. servo has the larger community by that measure.
Are servo and Harper free?
Both are open source. servo is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Harper under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between servo and Harper?
servo is written in Rust 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, servo or Harper?
Choose servo if you want the larger community (38,001 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Harper if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.