head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs atomic-agent
Lightpanda has 35,617 GitHub stars, 1,691 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. atomic-agent has 2,514 stars, 252 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped today. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 1,317% (35,617 vs 2,514 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; atomic-agent is written in TypeScript under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, atomic-agent 10%. 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 | atomic-agent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 252 |
| 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 atomic-agent if
- You want the atomic-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and atomic-agent 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 atomic-agent
Atomic Agent is a local first AI agent, written in TypeScript and released under the MIT licence, that runs open weight models and its entire control loop on the user's own machine through llama.cpp, aimed at developers and technical users who want a browser driving, file editing, command running assistant without cloud dependency or per token fees.
read the full atomic-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or atomic-agent more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,617 GitHub stars and atomic-agent has 2,514. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and atomic-agent free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and atomic-agent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and atomic-agent?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and atomic-agent 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, Lightpanda or atomic-agent?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,617 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose atomic-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.