head to head · open source
Ladybird vs markdown-viewer
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars, 3,194 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. markdown-viewer has 1,723 stars, 234 forks, 99 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. Ladybird leads on adoption by 3,777% (66,807 vs 1,723 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; markdown-viewer is written in JavaScript under MIT. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, markdown-viewer 14%. 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 | markdown-viewer | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-12-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 234 |
| 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 markdown-viewer if
- You want the markdown-viewer feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and markdown-viewer 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 markdown-viewer
Markdown Viewer / Browser Extension Install: [Chrome] / [Firefox] / [Edge] / [Opera] / [Brave] / [Chromium] / [Vivaldi] Features Secure by design Render local and remote file URLs Granular access to remote origins Multiple markdown parsers Full control over the compiler options ([markdown it], [marked], [remark]) 30+ Themes ([cleanrmd], [GitHub][github theme]) Custom theme support GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) Auto reload on file change Syntax highlighted code blocks ([prism][prism]) Table of Contents (ToC) MathJax formulas ([mathjax]) Mermaid diagrams ([mermaid]) Convert emoji shortnames (icons provided free…
read the full markdown-viewer overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or markdown-viewer more popular?
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars and markdown-viewer has 1,723. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and markdown-viewer free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and markdown-viewer under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and markdown-viewer?
Ladybird is written in C++ and markdown-viewer 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 markdown-viewer?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,807 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose markdown-viewer if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.