head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs browser-search
Lightpanda has 41,263 GitHub stars, 2,035 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. browser-search has 540 stars, 42 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 7,541% (41,263 vs 540 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; browser-search is written in JavaScript under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, browser-search 8%. 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 | browser-search | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 540 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 42 |
| 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 browser-search if
- You want the browser-search feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and browser-search 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 browser-search
browser search =20" A skill for AI agents. OpenCode, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw and beyond. Search the web with SearXNG, browse with Camofox, bypass protections with CloakBrowser. Anti hallucination by design. All self hosted, free, unlimited. English · 简体中文 · Español · 日本語 · 한국어 · Português (Brasil) · Français · Deutsch · Русский · العربية · हिन्दी · Italiano Why it exists Today an AI agent browsing the web is like a thief in a balaclava sneaking around a police academy. The site protections block it, challenge it, reject it. 👮 browser search flips the situation: your agent stops being the thief and becomes…
read the full browser-search overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or browser-search more popular?
Lightpanda has 41,263 GitHub stars and browser-search has 540. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and browser-search free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and browser-search under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and browser-search?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and browser-search in JavaScript. 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 browser-search?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (41,263 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose browser-search if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.