head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs puppeteer-sharp
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars, 1,684 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. puppeteer-sharp has 3,921 stars, 483 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 804% (35,452 vs 3,921 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; puppeteer-sharp is written in C# under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, puppeteer-sharp 12%. 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 | puppeteer-sharp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 483 |
| 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 puppeteer-sharp if
- You want the puppeteer-sharp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and puppeteer-sharp 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 puppeteer-sharp
Puppeteer Sharp is an MIT licensed .NET port of the official Node.js Puppeteer API, giving C developers headless Chrome automation for screenshots, PDF generation, content extraction, and end to end testing without leaving the .NET toolchain.
read the full puppeteer-sharp overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or puppeteer-sharp more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,452 GitHub stars and puppeteer-sharp has 3,921. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and puppeteer-sharp free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and puppeteer-sharp under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and puppeteer-sharp?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and puppeteer-sharp in C#. 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 puppeteer-sharp?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,452 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose puppeteer-sharp if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.