head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs HTTP-Shortcuts
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. HTTP-Shortcuts has 1,859 stars, 158 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 2,099% (40,882 vs 1,859 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; HTTP-Shortcuts is written in Kotlin under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, HTTP-Shortcuts 8%. HTTP-Shortcuts was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Lightpanda | HTTP-Shortcuts | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 1.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 158 |
| 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 HTTP-Shortcuts if
- You want the HTTP-Shortcuts feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and HTTP-Shortcuts 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 HTTP-Shortcuts
HTTP Shortcuts for Android An Android app that lets you to create shortcuts that can be placed on your home screen. Each shortcut, when clicked, triggers an HTTP request, with the possibility to process and display the response in various ways. Plus a whole lot of other (non HTTP) stuff. or download the latest APK directly. Find more information and documentation on the official website, or check out the (still very new and sparsely populated) official subreddit. Support this app by helping me translate it or by becoming a Beta Tester! Features No ads, no enshitification (I try) and completely free and open…
read the full HTTP-Shortcuts overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or HTTP-Shortcuts more popular?
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars and HTTP-Shortcuts has 1,859. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and HTTP-Shortcuts free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and HTTP-Shortcuts under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and HTTP-Shortcuts?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and HTTP-Shortcuts in Kotlin. 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 HTTP-Shortcuts?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (40,882 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose HTTP-Shortcuts if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.