head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs OpenBot
Lightpanda has 35,498 GitHub stars, 1,685 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. OpenBot has 5,289 stars, 679 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped today. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 571% (35,498 vs 5,289 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 13%. 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 | ★ 35K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 679 |
| 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 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 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 OpenBot
OpenBot is an MIT licensed, self hosted TypeScript agent platform in which each AI coworker gets a computer of its own — a real browser with its own logins, its own files and only the tools you grant — with every action decided before it happens and recorded after, for teams that want an assistant they can own and modify.
read the full OpenBot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or OpenBot more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,498 GitHub stars and OpenBot has 5,289. 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 (35,498 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose OpenBot if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.