head to head · open source
Browser Use vs Lightpanda
Browser Use has 119,857 GitHub stars, 13,358 forks, 421 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda has 40,882 stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Browser Use leads on adoption by 193% (119,857 vs 40,882 stars). Browser Use is written in Python under MIT; Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0. Browser Use has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Lightpanda 5%. Lightpanda was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (browser-automation, cdp, 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
| Browser Use | Lightpanda | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 120K | ★ 41K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Zig |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 13K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Browser Use if
- You weight community size — 120K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Lightpanda if
- You want the Lightpanda feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You evaluated both and Lightpanda fits your workflow better
About Browser Use
Navigate the web like a human does. Find an available slot, pick a date and time, handle the CAPTCHA, and book a driving test. Explore more demos and prompts ↗ Which Browser Use do I need? Path 1: Fully Hosted Cloud: Scale up with a fully hosted agent and browser. Path 2: CLI: Automate your own browser tasks. Path 3: Python Library: Run the open source Browser Use agent locally from your own code. Quickstart Path 1: Fully Hosted Cloud Scale browser automation with our hosted agent, stealth browsers, and infrastructure for profiles, recordings, and data policies. Get started with the API ↗ New Google, GitHub, or…
read the full Browser Use overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Browser Use or Lightpanda more popular?
Browser Use has 119,857 GitHub stars and Lightpanda has 40,882. Browser Use has the larger community by that measure.
Are Browser Use and Lightpanda free?
Both are open source. Browser Use is licensed under MIT and Lightpanda under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Browser Use and Lightpanda?
Browser Use is written in Python and Lightpanda in Zig. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Browser Use or Lightpanda?
Choose Browser Use if you want the larger community (119,857 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Lightpanda if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.