head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs PHPScraper
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars, 1,684 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. PHPScraper has 588 stars, 75 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 5,929% (35,452 vs 588 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; PHPScraper is written in PHP under GPL-3.0. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, PHPScraper 13%. Lightpanda was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (puppeteer), 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 | PHPScraper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 588 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Zig | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 75 |
| 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 PHPScraper if
- You want the PHPScraper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and PHPScraper 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 PHPScraper
PHPScraper is a GPL 3.0 PHP web utility for developers who need to extract structured information such as titles, metadata, social tags, headings, lists, images, links, keywords, and downloadable assets from websites without writing selectors or manually preparing the extracted data.
read the full PHPScraper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or PHPScraper more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars and PHPScraper has 588. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and PHPScraper free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and PHPScraper under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and PHPScraper?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and PHPScraper in PHP. 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 PHPScraper?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,452 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose PHPScraper if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.