head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs spook
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars, 1,999 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. spook has 1,761 stars, 108 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 2,222% (40,882 vs 1,761 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; spook is written in Python under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, spook 6%. 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 | spook | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 108 |
| 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 spook if
- You want the spook feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and spook 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 spook
Spook 👻 Your homie. [![GitHub Release][releases shield]][releases] ![Project Stage][project stage shield] [![License][license shield]](LICENSE.md) ![Project Maintenance][maintenance shield] [![Coverage][codecov shield]][codecov] [![OpenSSF Scorecard][scorecard shield]][scorecard] About Hi! I'm Spook 👻 and I'm a custom integration for use with Home Assistant. I will extend your Home Assistant instance with a huge set of scary powerful tools. 🛠️ Learn all about me in the extensive documentation ⚠️ Just to be very clear... Spook is not affiliated with, endorsed, recommended, or supported by the Home Assistant…
read the full spook overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or spook more popular?
Lightpanda has 40,882 GitHub stars and spook has 1,761. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and spook free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and spook under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and spook?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and spook 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 spook?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (40,882 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose spook if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.