head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs Windmill
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars, 1,680 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Windmill has 17,957 stars, 1,096 forks, 852 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 97% (35,409 vs 17,957 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; Windmill is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Windmill 6%. Windmill 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 | Windmill | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 18K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Zig | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 Windmill if
- You want the Windmill feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Windmill 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 Windmill
Windmill is an open source developer platform for internal code, including APIs, background jobs, workflows, and UIs. It lives in the self hostable low code automation ecosystem and supports Python, TypeScript, Go, Bash, SQL, GraphQL, PowerShell, Rust, and more. The project is positioned as an open source alternative to Zapier and, in the README, to Retool, Pipedream, Superblocks, and a simplified Temporal.
read the full Windmill overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or Windmill more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars and Windmill has 17,957. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and Windmill free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Windmill has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and Windmill?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and Windmill in Rust. 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 Windmill?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,409 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Windmill if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.