head to head · open source
obscura vs javascript-obfuscator
obscura has 30,141 GitHub stars, 2,279 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. javascript-obfuscator has 16,318 stars, 1,746 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped yesterday. obscura leads on adoption by 85% (30,141 vs 16,318 stars). obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; javascript-obfuscator is written in TypeScript under BSD-2-Clause. obscura has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, javascript-obfuscator 11%. obscura 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
| obscura | javascript-obfuscator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 javascript-obfuscator if
- You want the javascript-obfuscator feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and javascript-obfuscator 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…
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About javascript-obfuscator
JavaScript obfuscator :rocket: Obfuscator.io with VM Obfuscation Obfuscator.io adds VM based bytecode obfuscation to this package your JavaScript functions are compiled to custom bytecode that runs on an embedded virtual machine. Each build produces unique opcodes and VM structure, making reverse engineering and automated deobfuscation dramatically harder. Visit Obfuscator.io · Pro API methods This package provides access to Obfuscator.io API via CLI and Node.js API. Do you use JavaScript Obfuscator at your company? JavaScript Obfuscator has reached over 1 million npm downloads per week . I am currently…
read the full javascript-obfuscator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obscura or javascript-obfuscator more popular?
obscura has 30,141 GitHub stars and javascript-obfuscator has 16,318. obscura has the larger community by that measure.
Are obscura and javascript-obfuscator free?
Both are open source. obscura is licensed under Apache-2.0 and javascript-obfuscator under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obscura and javascript-obfuscator?
obscura is written in Rust and javascript-obfuscator 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, obscura or javascript-obfuscator?
Choose obscura if you want the larger community (30,141 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose javascript-obfuscator if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.