head to head · open source
Ladybird vs buster
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars, 3,194 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. buster has 9,359 stars, 697 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Ladybird leads on adoption by 614% (66,807 vs 9,359 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; buster is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, buster 7%. 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 | buster | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 697 |
| 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 buster if
- You want the buster feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and buster 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 buster
Buster: Captcha Solver for Humans Sponsors Lenso.ai Explore billions of images from all around the web. Search for places, people, duplicates, and more. Supporting the Project The continued development of Buster is made possible thanks to the support of awesome backers. If you'd like to join them, please consider contributing with Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin. Description Buster is a browser extension which helps you to solve difficult CAPTCHAs by completing reCAPTCHA audio challenges using speech recognition. Challenges are solved by clicking on the extension button at the bottom of the reCAPTCHA widget…
read the full buster overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or buster more popular?
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars and buster has 9,359. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and buster free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and buster under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and buster?
Ladybird is written in C++ and buster 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, Ladybird or buster?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,807 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose buster if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.