head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs Mink
Lightpanda has 35,778 GitHub stars, 1,691 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Mink has 1,608 stars, 286 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 2,125% (35,778 vs 1,608 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; Mink is written in PHP under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Mink 18%. 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 | Mink | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-10-02 | 2026-09-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 286 |
| 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 Mink if
- You want the Mink feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Mink 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 Mink
Mink is a PHP library that gives developers a single, driver agnostic interface for driving and interrogating web pages through interchangeable browser emulation sessions, aimed at PHP teams writing tests and scraping workflows.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or Mink more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,778 GitHub stars and Mink has 1,608. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and Mink free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Mink under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and Mink?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and Mink in PHP. 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 Mink?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,778 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Mink if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.