head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs invisible_selenium
Lightpanda has 36,181 GitHub stars, 1,715 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. invisible_selenium has 1,965 stars, 277 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped today. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 1,741% (36,181 vs 1,965 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; invisible_selenium is written in Python under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, invisible_selenium 14%. 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 | invisible_selenium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-10 | 2026-10-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 277 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 36K 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 invisible_selenium if
- You want the invisible_selenium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and invisible_selenium 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 invisible_selenium
invisible selenium is a Python package for web scrapers and browser automation engineers who want Selenium's existing API to run on an anti detect Firefox that anti bot systems do not flag as automated.
read the full invisible_selenium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or invisible_selenium more popular?
Lightpanda has 36,181 GitHub stars and invisible_selenium has 1,965. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and invisible_selenium free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and invisible_selenium under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and invisible_selenium?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and invisible_selenium 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 invisible_selenium?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (36,181 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose invisible_selenium if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.