head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs actionbook
Lightpanda has 35,852 GitHub stars, 1,691 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. actionbook has 1,607 stars, 120 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 2,131% (35,852 vs 1,607 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; actionbook is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, actionbook 7%. Lightpanda was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser-automation), 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
| Lightpanda | actionbook | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Zig | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-03 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 120 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick actionbook if
- You want the actionbook feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and actionbook fits your workflow better
About Lightpanda
Lightpanda is a headless browser built from scratch in Zig, designed specifically for AI agents and automation tasks. It is not a fork of Chromium or WebKit but a new implementation targeting performance and efficiency in automated web interactions. It lives in the browser automation ecosystem, competing with tools like Puppeteer and Playwright that typically rely on Chromium based headless modes.
read the full Lightpanda overview →
About actionbook
Actionbook lets an AI agent reach data behind logins and paywalls by pairing a hosted MCP connector with a Chrome extension that drives your real, already signed in browser.
read the full actionbook overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or actionbook more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,852 GitHub stars and actionbook has 1,607. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and actionbook free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and actionbook under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and actionbook?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and actionbook in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lightpanda or actionbook?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,852 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose actionbook if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.