head to head · open source
Ladybird vs Brave
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars, 3,194 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Brave has 24,079 stars, 3,263 forks, 10,752 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ladybird leads on adoption by 177% (66,807 vs 24,079 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; Brave is written in various languages under MPL-2.0. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Brave 14%. Ladybird 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
| Ladybird | Brave | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 24K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | — |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 3.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ladybird if
- You weight community size — 67K 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 Brave if
- You want the Brave feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- You evaluated both and Brave fits your workflow better
About Ladybird
Ladybird Ladybird is a truly independent web browser, using a novel engine based on web standards. [!IMPORTANT] Ladybird is in a pre alpha state, and only suitable for use by developers Features We aim to build a complete, usable browser for the modern web. Ladybird uses a multi process architecture with a main UI process, several WebContent renderer processes, an ImageDecoder process, and a RequestServer process. Image decoding and network connections are done out of process to be more robust against malicious content. Each tab has its own renderer process, which is sandboxed from the rest of the system. At the…
read the full Ladybird overview →
About Brave
Brave Browser This repository is not needed for building the browser and only holds issues, releases and the wiki. The source code and contributions are at You can visit our website to get the latest stable release. Resources Issues: Bug reports and feature requests for the Brave Browser. Releases: Releases of Brave Browser hosted on GitHub. See Brave Release Schedule for more information. Wiki: Documentation for developers, administrators, and power users. User facing documentation is available at the Brave help center. Documentation and guides: Additional technical information, primarily for developers…
read the full Brave overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or Brave more popular?
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars and Brave has 24,079. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and Brave free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Brave under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and Brave?
Ladybird is written in C++ and Brave in various languages. 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 Brave?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,807 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose Brave if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.