head to head · open source
Ladybird vs gosub-engine
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars, 3,194 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gosub-engine has 3,690 stars, 185 forks, 43 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ladybird leads on adoption by 1,710% (66,807 vs 3,690 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; gosub-engine is written in Rust under MIT. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, gosub-engine 5%. 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 | gosub-engine | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 185 |
| 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 gosub-engine if
- You want the gosub-engine feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and gosub-engine 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 gosub-engine
Gosub Browser Engine An embeddable, async browser engine written in Rust. Join us on our development Zulip chat, or our Discord server for general chat. If you'd like to contribute, start with the contribution guide. About Gosub is a modular, embeddable browser engine. The primary entry point is GosubEngine in the gosub engine crate. You provide a render backend and a compositor; the engine owns a multi zone/tab model, an async networking stack, cookie and storage isolation per zone, and an event bus. Your user agent (UA) drives everything via TabCommand and reacts to EngineEvent . Core components: For the full…
read the full gosub-engine overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or gosub-engine more popular?
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars and gosub-engine has 3,690. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and gosub-engine free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and gosub-engine under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and gosub-engine?
Ladybird is written in C++ and gosub-engine 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 gosub-engine?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,807 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose gosub-engine if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.