head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs jshookmcp
Lightpanda has 35,638 GitHub stars, 1,691 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. jshookmcp has 2,020 stars, 459 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 1,664% (35,638 vs 2,020 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; jshookmcp is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, jshookmcp 23%. 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 | jshookmcp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 459 |
| 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 jshookmcp if
- You want the jshookmcp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and jshookmcp 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 jshookmcp
jshook is an AGPL 3.0, strict TypeScript reverse engineering workspace distributed as a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server under the package name @jshookmcp/jshook, built for AI agents performing JavaScript and WASM reverse engineering, network analysis, deobfuscation and process instrumentation.
read the full jshookmcp overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or jshookmcp more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,638 GitHub stars and jshookmcp has 2,020. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and jshookmcp free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and jshookmcp under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and jshookmcp?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and jshookmcp 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 jshookmcp?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,638 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose jshookmcp if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.