head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs OpenAdapt
Lightpanda has 36,760 GitHub stars, 1,772 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. OpenAdapt has 1,784 stars, 266 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped today. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 1,961% (36,760 vs 1,784 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; OpenAdapt is written in Python under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, OpenAdapt 15%. OpenAdapt 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 | OpenAdapt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-20 | 2026-10-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 266 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 37K 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 OpenAdapt if
- You want the OpenAdapt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and OpenAdapt 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 OpenAdapt
OpenAdapt Give your agent a program, not a mouse. The open source, verified execution layer for computer use agents. What it can do · Documentation · Quickstart · Live demo · Website · Discord A computer use agent looks at the screen and chooses every click again, on every run. OpenAdapt lets your agent, or a person, do a task once in any app: web, Windows, macOS, Linux, RDP or Citrix. It compiles that run into a program, and your agent calls the program as one tool. The program runs with no model calls and sends no screenshots anywhere. It confirms the right record before each save, reads the save back from the…
read the full OpenAdapt overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or OpenAdapt more popular?
Lightpanda has 36,760 GitHub stars and OpenAdapt has 1,784. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and OpenAdapt free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and OpenAdapt under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and OpenAdapt?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and OpenAdapt in Python. 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 OpenAdapt?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (36,760 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose OpenAdapt if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.