head to head · open source

Ladybird vs plasmo

Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars, 3,194 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. plasmo has 13,172 stars, 466 forks, 371 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Ladybird leads on adoption by 407% (66,807 vs 13,172 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; plasmo is written in TypeScript under MIT. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, plasmo 4%. 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.

Ladybird ★ 67K plasmo ★ 13K category Productivity & Utilities

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Side by side

Ladybird plasmo
GitHub stars ★ 67K ★ 13K
License BSD-2-Clause MIT
Written in C++ TypeScript
Last push 2026-11-02 2026-10-31
Forks ⑂ 3.2K ⑂ 466
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

full Ladybird profile →

pick plasmo if

  • You want the plasmo feature set and don't need the biggest community
  • You prefer the MIT license terms
  • Your stack matches TypeScript
  • You evaluated both and plasmo fits your workflow better

full plasmo profile →

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 plasmo

English 简体中文 Tiếng Việt Deutsch French Indonesian Русский Turkish 日本語 한국어 Production Cloud: We've built a cloud offering for browser extensions called Itero. Check it out if you want instant beta testing and more awesome features. Plasmo Framework The Plasmo Framework is a battery packed browser extension SDK made by hackers for hackers. Build your product and stop worrying about config files and the odd peculiarities of building browser extensions. It's like Next.js for browser extensions! Highlighted Features First class React + Typescript Support Declarative Development Content Scripts UI Tab Pages Live…

read the full plasmo overview →

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Frequently asked questions

Is Ladybird or plasmo more popular?

Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars and plasmo has 13,172. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.

Are Ladybird and plasmo free?

Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and plasmo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.

What is the difference between Ladybird and plasmo?

Ladybird is written in C++ and plasmo in TypeScript. 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 plasmo?

Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,807 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose plasmo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.