head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs OpenBot
Lightpanda has 41,426 GitHub stars, 2,044 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. OpenBot has 10,271 stars, 1,274 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped today. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 303% (41,426 vs 10,271 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; OpenBot is written in TypeScript under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, OpenBot 12%. OpenBot 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 | OpenBot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 10K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-11-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 41K 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 OpenBot if
- You want the OpenBot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and OpenBot 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 OpenBot
OpenBot The AI assistant your company can actually own. Same shape as ChatGPT, Claude or Grok, with one difference that matters: it runs on your infrastructure and you can change anything about it. Any agent stack, through AG UI. Each coworker gets a computer of its own: a real browser with its own logins, its own files, and only the tools you grant. Every action decided before it happens and recorded after. Talk to an engineer · Have us build it with you · copilotkit.ai/openbot · Quick start · Docs Bring any AG UI agent, written on a framework or by hand, and it arrives as a coworker with a channel of its own…
read the full OpenBot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or OpenBot more popular?
Lightpanda has 41,426 GitHub stars and OpenBot has 10,271. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and OpenBot free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and OpenBot under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and OpenBot?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and OpenBot 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 OpenBot?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (41,426 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose OpenBot if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.