head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs playwright_mcp
Lightpanda has 42,025 GitHub stars, 2,110 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. playwright_mcp has 864 stars, 115 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 4,764% (42,025 vs 864 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; playwright_mcp is written in Python under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, playwright_mcp 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 (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 | playwright_mcp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 864 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-14 | 2026-11-12 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 115 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 42K 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 playwright_mcp if
- You want the playwright_mcp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and playwright_mcp 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 playwright_mcp
Other AI browser agents get captchas. This one is invisible to anti bots. Two ways to use this browser agent 1. From your assistant, over MCP Windows, in PowerShell: Linux: Then install it in your assistant. Claude Code: Codex: Gemini CLI: 2. Standalone: the web UI We bring the interface, you bring an OpenRouter key. Chat on the left, the live browser on the right. Windows, in PowerShell: Linux: Then open and type the same thing. What to ask a web browsing agent Anything that needs real web automation: a browser rather than an API, and a person's judgement about what is on the page. Go to . One way, Milan to…
read the full playwright_mcp overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or playwright_mcp more popular?
Lightpanda has 42,025 GitHub stars and playwright_mcp has 864. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and playwright_mcp free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and playwright_mcp under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and playwright_mcp?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and playwright_mcp 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 playwright_mcp?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (42,025 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose playwright_mcp if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.