head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs LiveKit
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars, 1,680 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LiveKit has 20,973 stars, 2,347 forks, 189 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 69% (35,409 vs 20,973 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; LiveKit is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, LiveKit 11%. 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 | LiveKit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 21K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Zig | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 35K 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 LiveKit if
- You want the LiveKit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and LiveKit 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 LiveKit
LiveKit is an open source realtime infrastructure project for voice, video, and physical AI agents, and it lives in the WebRTC, media server, and voice AI ecosystem. The repository contains the LiveKit server, a scalable distributed WebRTC SFU written in Go and built on Pion WebRTC. It moves realtime audio, video, and data between people, devices, and AI models, while SDKs, agent frameworks, and companion services are provided separately.
read the full LiveKit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or LiveKit more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars and LiveKit has 20,973. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and LiveKit free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and LiveKit under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and LiveKit?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and LiveKit in Go. 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 LiveKit?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,409 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose LiveKit if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.