head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs js-reverse-mcp
Lightpanda has 35,587 GitHub stars, 1,689 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. js-reverse-mcp has 2,828 stars, 369 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 24 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 1,158% (35,587 vs 2,828 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; js-reverse-mcp is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, js-reverse-mcp 13%. 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, cdp), 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 | js-reverse-mcp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-26 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 369 |
| 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 js-reverse-mcp if
- You want the js-reverse-mcp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and js-reverse-mcp 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 js-reverse-mcp
js reverse mcp is an AI agent first MCP server, written in TypeScript and released under the Apache 2.0 licence, that gives AI coding assistants such as Claude, Cursor and Copilot a persistent, headful Chrome debugging environment for analysing, breakpointing and reverse engineering JavaScript running in web pages.
read the full js-reverse-mcp overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or js-reverse-mcp more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,587 GitHub stars and js-reverse-mcp has 2,828. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and js-reverse-mcp free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and js-reverse-mcp under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and js-reverse-mcp?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and js-reverse-mcp in TypeScript. 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 js-reverse-mcp?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,587 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose js-reverse-mcp if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.