head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs magic
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. magic has 1,215 stars, 177 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 3,265% (40,882 vs 1,215 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; magic is written in C# under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, magic 15%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Lightpanda | magic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 177 |
| 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 magic if
- You want the magic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and magic 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 magic
Instant SECURE Full Stack Apps and AI Agents Turn plain English into a working full stack app — database, secure API, business logic, and frontend — running on your own hardware , with zero lock in . An open source alternative to Lovable, Bolt, and Replit that gives you the whole backend, plus an MCP server that turns every endpoint into a tool for Claude, Cursor, or Codex. Read more about Hyperlambda. [ ] Run it in 60 seconds Then open localhost:5555 , point it at localhost:4444 , and log in with root / root . Point the API Wizard at your database, and it generates a complete, secured REST API — then extend it…
read the full magic overview →
More in Data & Analytics
Related comparisons
More Data Extraction & Web Scraping projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Extraction & Web Scraping field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or magic more popular?
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars and magic has 1,215. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and magic free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and magic under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and magic?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and magic 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 magic?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (40,882 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose magic if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.