head to head · open source
Ladybird vs HackBrowserData
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars, 3,194 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. HackBrowserData has 14,661 stars, 1,809 forks, 33 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ladybird leads on adoption by 356% (66,807 vs 14,661 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; HackBrowserData is written in Go under MIT. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, HackBrowserData 12%. 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 | HackBrowserData | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 15K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| 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 HackBrowserData if
- You want the HackBrowserData feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and HackBrowserData 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 HackBrowserData
HackBrowserData HackBrowserData is a command line tool for decrypting and exporting browser data (passwords, history, cookies, bookmarks, credit cards, download history, localStorage, sessionStorage and extensions) from the browser. It supports the most popular Chromium based browsers and Firefox on Windows, macOS and Linux, plus Safari on macOS. It can also decrypt data across machines and operating systems : export the master keys on the origin host, then decrypt a copy of the data offline on any other host — even for a browser that the analyst host's OS cannot run (see Cross host decryption). Disclaimer: This…
read the full HackBrowserData overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or HackBrowserData more popular?
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars and HackBrowserData has 14,661. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and HackBrowserData free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and HackBrowserData under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and HackBrowserData?
Ladybird is written in C++ and HackBrowserData in Go. 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 HackBrowserData?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,807 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose HackBrowserData if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.