head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs CloakBrowser
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars, 1,684 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. CloakBrowser has 31,578 stars, 2,615 forks, 227 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 12% (35,452 vs 31,578 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; CloakBrowser is written in Python under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, CloakBrowser 8%. 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 | CloakBrowser | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 32K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 2.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 35K 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 CloakBrowser if
- You want the CloakBrowser feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and CloakBrowser 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 CloakBrowser
CloakBrowser is a stealth Chromium build for Python and JavaScript teams that need browser automation to survive bot detection systems, aimed at scraping and AI agent engineers who want to replace Playwright or Puppeteer without rewriting their code.
read the full CloakBrowser overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or CloakBrowser more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars and CloakBrowser has 31,578. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and CloakBrowser free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and CloakBrowser under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and CloakBrowser?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and CloakBrowser 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 CloakBrowser?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,452 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose CloakBrowser if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.