head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs MDMA
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars, 1,680 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MDMA has 67 stars, 2 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 52,749% (35,409 vs 67 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; MDMA is written in TypeScript under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, MDMA 3%. 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 | MDMA | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 67 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 2 |
| 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 MDMA if
- You want the MDMA feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and MDMA 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 MDMA
MDMA (Markdown Document with Mounted Applications) is an MIT licensed TypeScript library that extends Markdown with interactive components, so an LLM can answer with forms, tables, and approval gates that a host application renders inline instead of leaving the user to act on plain text.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or MDMA more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars and MDMA has 67. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and MDMA free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and MDMA under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and MDMA?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and MDMA 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 MDMA?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,409 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose MDMA if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.