head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs mitosis
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars, 1,680 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mitosis has 14,390 stars, 672 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 146% (35,409 vs 14,390 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; mitosis is written in TypeScript under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, mitosis 5%. 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 | mitosis | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 14K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 672 |
| 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 mitosis if
- You want the mitosis feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and mitosis 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 mitosis
Mitosis is an open source compiler that lets developers write UI components once in a single codebase and compile them to React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, Solid, Alpine, Qwik, and more. It is a TypeScript project under the MIT license, maintained in the BuilderIO organization, with the repository carrying roughly 14,384 stars and 671 forks across six years of history. The project lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript component ecosystem, and its documentation, playground, and Figma integration are hosted at mitosis.builder.io.
read the full mitosis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or mitosis more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars and mitosis has 14,390. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and mitosis free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and mitosis under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and mitosis?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and mitosis 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 mitosis?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,409 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose mitosis if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.