head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs agentql
Lightpanda has 41,174 GitHub stars, 2,024 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. agentql has 1,494 stars, 181 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 2,656% (41,174 vs 1,494 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; agentql is written in Python under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, agentql 12%. Lightpanda was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (playwright), 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 | agentql | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 181 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 41K 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 agentql if
- You want the agentql feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and agentql fits your workflow better
About Lightpanda
Lightpanda Browser The headless browser built from scratch for AI agents and automation. Not a Chromium fork. Not a WebKit patch. A new browser, written in Zig.   Benchmarks Requesting 933 real web pages over the network on a AWS EC2 m5.large instance. See benchmark details. Quick start Install Package Managers Latest nightly from Homebrew: Latest nightly from Arch Linux User Repository: Download from the nightly builds You can download the last binary from the nightly builds for Linux and MacOS for both x86 64 and aarch64. For Linux Verify the binary before running anything: Linux aarch64 is also available…
read the full Lightpanda overview →
About agentql
AgentQL connects LLMs and AI agents to the entire web What is AgentQL? AgentQL is a suite of tools for extracting data and automating workflows on live web sites featuring an AI powered query language, Python and JavaScript SDKs, a browser based debugger, and a REST API endpoint. It uses natural language queries to pinpoint data and elements on any web page, including authenticated and dynamically generated content. Users can define structured data output and apply transforms within queries. AgentQL's natural language selectors find elements intuitively based on the content of the web page and work across…
read the full agentql overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or agentql more popular?
Lightpanda has 41,174 GitHub stars and agentql has 1,494. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and agentql free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and agentql under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and agentql?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and agentql in Python. 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 agentql?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (41,174 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose agentql if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.