head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs atomic-agent
Lightpanda has 41,952 GitHub stars, 2,104 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. atomic-agent has 3,631 stars, 294 forks, 163 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 1,055% (41,952 vs 3,631 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 8%. atomic-agent 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 | ★ 42K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-12 | 2026-11-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 294 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 42K 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 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 atomic-agent
Atomic Agent A local first AI agent that runs on your machine, with local or cloud models. Drives your browser, edits files, runs approved commands, and remembers context across sessions. Open source, running on our TurboQuant llama.cpp so long sessions with small local models fit in less memory. Quick Install · Uninstall · Benchmarks · Why Local First · Ways to Use It · Docs A local first AI agent that runs the control loop and all state on your machine. It works across your machine: browse the web, read and edit files, run approved shell commands, inspect documents, remember context across sessions, schedule…
read the full atomic-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or atomic-agent more popular?
Lightpanda has 41,952 GitHub stars and atomic-agent has 3,631. 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 (41,952 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.