head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs auto-browser
Lightpanda has 36,028 GitHub stars, 1,702 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. auto-browser has 900 stars, 152 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 3,903% (36,028 vs 900 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; auto-browser is written in Python under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, auto-browser 17%. Lightpanda was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (browser-automation, 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 | auto-browser | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 900 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-06 | 2026-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 152 |
| 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 auto-browser if
- You want the auto-browser feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and auto-browser 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 auto-browser
Auto Browser is an open source, MCP native browser control plane that gives AI agents and MCP clients a real Playwright driven browser with human takeover, approvals, and local first deployment.
read the full auto-browser overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or auto-browser more popular?
Lightpanda has 36,028 GitHub stars and auto-browser has 900. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and auto-browser free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and auto-browser under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and auto-browser?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and auto-browser 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 auto-browser?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (36,028 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose auto-browser if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.