head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs browserless
Lightpanda has 41,174 GitHub stars, 2,024 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. browserless has 1,845 stars, 93 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 2,132% (41,174 vs 1,845 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; browserless is written in JavaScript under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, browserless 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, headless, puppeteer), 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 | browserless | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 93 |
| 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 browserless if
- You want the browserless feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and browserless 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 browserless
The headless Chrome/Chromium driver on top of Puppeteer. Highlights Installation Usage The cloud API solution CLI Initializing a browser .constructor(options) .createContext(options) .browser() .respawn() .close() Built in .html(url, options) .text(url, options) .pdf(url, options) .screenshot(url, options) .destroyContext(options) .getDevice(options) .evaluate(fn, gotoOpts) .goto(page, options) .context() [.withPage(fn, \[options\])]( withpagefn options) [.page(\[name\])]( pagename) Extended ai function lighthouse screencast Packages FAQ License Highlights Compatible with Puppeteer API (text, screenshot, html…
read the full browserless overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or browserless more popular?
Lightpanda has 41,174 GitHub stars and browserless has 1,845. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and browserless free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and browserless under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and browserless?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and browserless 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 browserless?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (41,174 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose browserless if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.