head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs iOS
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. iOS has 2,396 stars, 552 forks, 293 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 1,606% (40,882 vs 2,396 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; iOS is written in Swift under Apache-2.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, iOS 23%. Lightpanda 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.
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Side by side
| Lightpanda | iOS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Zig | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 552 |
| 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 iOS if
- You want the iOS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and iOS 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 iOS
Home Assistant for Apple Platforms ================= Getting Started Home Assistant uses Bundler, Homebrew, and SPM to manage build dependencies. You'll need Xcode 27.0 (or later), currently a beta, which you can download from Apple Developer Downloads. You can get the app running using the following commands: Once this completes, you can launch HomeAssistant.xcodeproj and run the App Debug scheme onto your simulator or iOS device. Testing just the frontend To just test the frontend, you can use a simulator version built by our GitHub actions. 1. Install Xcode from the App Store making sure it's at least the…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or iOS more popular?
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars and iOS has 2,396. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and iOS free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and iOS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and iOS?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and iOS in Swift. 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 iOS?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (40,882 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose iOS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.