head to head · open source
Ladybird vs opal
Ladybird has 66,240 GitHub stars, 3,162 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped today. opal has 4,926 stars, 336 forks, 152 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Ladybird leads on adoption by 1,245% (66,240 vs 4,926 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; opal is written in Ruby under MIT. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, opal 7%. 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 | opal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 336 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ladybird if
- You weight community size — 66K 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 opal if
- You want the opal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and opal fits your workflow better
About Ladybird
Ladybird is a truly independent web browser and browser engine, written from scratch in C++ rather than as a fork of any existing engine, and it is built for developers who want to work on a browser engine based on web standards while it remains in a pre alpha state.
read the full Ladybird overview →
About opal
Opal is an MIT licensed Ruby to JavaScript source to source compiler, distributed as a Ruby gem, that lets developers write Ruby and run the resulting JavaScript in the browser, Node.js, Deno, Bun, or QuickJS.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or opal more popular?
Ladybird has 66,240 GitHub stars and opal has 4,926. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and opal free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and opal under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and opal?
Ladybird is written in C++ and opal in Ruby. 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 opal?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,240 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose opal if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.