head to head · open source
Ladybird vs serenity
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars, 3,194 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. serenity has 33,938 stars, 3,488 forks, 739 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ladybird leads on adoption by 97% (66,807 vs 33,938 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; serenity is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, serenity 10%. 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 | serenity | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 34K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| 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 serenity if
- You want the serenity feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and serenity 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 serenity
SerenityOS Graphical Unix like operating system for 64 bit x86, Arm, and RISC V computers. FAQ Documentation Build Instructions About SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom Unix like core. It flatters with sincerity by stealing beautiful ideas from various other systems. Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of late 1990s productivity software and the power user accessibility of late 2000s \ nix. This is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like. You can watch videos of the system being developed on YouTube: Andreas Kling's channel Linus Groh's…
read the full serenity overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or serenity more popular?
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars and serenity has 33,938. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and serenity free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and serenity under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and serenity?
Ladybird is written in C++ and serenity in C++. 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 serenity?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,807 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose serenity if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.