head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs IRremoteESP8266
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. IRremoteESP8266 has 3,661 stars, 945 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 1,017% (40,882 vs 3,661 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; IRremoteESP8266 is written in C++ under LGPL-2.1. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, IRremoteESP8266 26%. 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 | IRremoteESP8266 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | Zig | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 945 |
| 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 IRremoteESP8266 if
- You want the IRremoteESP8266 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-2.1 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and IRremoteESP8266 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 IRremoteESP8266
This library enables you to send and receive infra red signals on an ESP8266 or an ESP32 using the Arduino framework using common 940nm IR LEDs and common IR receiver modules. e.g. TSOP{17,22,24,36,38,44,48} demodulators etc. v2.9.0 Now Available Version 2.9.0 of the library is now available. You can view the Release Notes for all the significant changes. Upgrading from pre v2.0 Usage of the library has been slightly changed in v2.0. You will need to change your usage to work with v2.0 and beyond. You can read more about the changes required on our Upgrade to v2.0 page. Upgrading from pre v2.5 The library has…
read the full IRremoteESP8266 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or IRremoteESP8266 more popular?
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars and IRremoteESP8266 has 3,661. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and IRremoteESP8266 free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and IRremoteESP8266 under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and IRremoteESP8266?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and IRremoteESP8266 in C++. 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 IRremoteESP8266?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (40,882 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose IRremoteESP8266 if its feature set, stack or LGPL-2.1 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.