head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs OpenProgram
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenProgram has 520 stars, 63 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 7,762% (40,882 vs 520 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; OpenProgram is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, OpenProgram 12%. 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 | OpenProgram | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 520 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 63 |
| 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 OpenProgram if
- You want the OpenProgram feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and OpenProgram 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 OpenProgram
Self Programming AI Assistant. Capture, automate, and refine all your workflows. Getting Started · Install · Docs · API Reference · Philosophy · 中文 "The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself." — Igor Stravinsky , Poetics of Music We propose Agentic Programming . An LLM is flexible; code is deterministic. Let the model run everything and you get chaos — unpredictable execution, context explosion, no output guarantees; hard code everything and you lose the intelligence. A harness balances the two, interleaved moment to moment — Python for the flow you want…
read the full OpenProgram overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or OpenProgram more popular?
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars and OpenProgram has 520. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and OpenProgram free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and OpenProgram under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and OpenProgram?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and OpenProgram 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 OpenProgram?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (40,882 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose OpenProgram if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.