head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs android
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars, 1,680 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. android has 3,897 stars, 1,065 forks, 458 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 809% (35,409 vs 3,897 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; android is written in Kotlin under Apache-2.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, android 27%. android 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.
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Side by side
| Lightpanda | android | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Zig | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 35K 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 android if
- You want the android feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and android 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 android
The Home Assistant Companion for Android is the official Android application for Home Assistant, an open source home automation platform. It is written in Kotlin, released under the Apache 2.0 license, and distributed as an open source app for Android devices. The project sits inside the Home Assistant ecosystem and connects a mobile client to a user's Home Assistant instance.
read the full android overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or android more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars and android has 3,897. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and android free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and android under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and android?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and android in Kotlin. 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 android?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,409 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose android if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.