head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs Maxun
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars, 1,684 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. Maxun has 17,507 stars, 1,510 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 103% (35,452 vs 17,507 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; Maxun is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Maxun 9%. 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, playwright), 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 | Maxun | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 18K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 Maxun if
- You want the Maxun 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 Maxun 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 Maxun
Maxun is an open source no code web data platform for real time web scraping, crawling, search, and AI data extraction. It turns websites into structured data and presents robots that collect information without code. The TypeScript project is released under AGPL 3.0, with topics placing it in browser automation, Playwright, crawler, data extraction, and robotic process automation.
read the full Maxun overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or Maxun more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars and Maxun has 17,507. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and Maxun free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Maxun under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and Maxun?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and Maxun 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 Maxun?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,452 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Maxun if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.