head to head · open source
monaco-editor vs Lightning-Browser
monaco-editor has 46,944 GitHub stars, 4,167 forks, 859 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightning-Browser has 2,452 stars, 860 forks, 354 open issues and last shipped yesterday. monaco-editor leads on adoption by 1,815% (46,944 vs 2,452 stars). monaco-editor is written in JavaScript under MIT; Lightning-Browser is written in Kotlin under MPL-2.0. monaco-editor has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Lightning-Browser 35%. monaco-editor was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| monaco-editor | Lightning-Browser | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 860 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick monaco-editor if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Lightning-Browser if
- You want the Lightning-Browser feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and Lightning-Browser fits your workflow better
About monaco-editor
Monaco Editor The Monaco Editor is the fully featured code editor from VS Code. Check out the VS Code docs to see some of the supported features. Try it out Try out the editor and see various examples in our interactive playground. The playground is the best way to learn about how to use the editor, which features is supports, to try out different versions and to create minimal reproducible examples for bug reports. Installing You will get: inside /esm : ESM version of the editor (compatible with e.g. webpack) monaco.d.ts : this specifies the API of the editor (this is what is actually versioned, everything else…
read the full monaco-editor overview →
About Lightning-Browser
Lightning Browser Speed, Simplicity, Security Download Features Bookmarks History Multiple search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, StartPage, DuckDuckGo, etc.) Incognito mode Unique utilization of navigation drawer or bottom drawer for tabs Customizable search suggestions Permissions Automatically granted INTERNET : necessary to access the internet. ACCESS NETWORK STATE : used by the browser to stop loading resources when network access is lost. INSTALL SHORTCUT : used to add shortcuts with the "Add to home screen" option. POST NOTIFICATIONS : used to display notifications. Requested only when needed WRITE EXTERNAL…
read the full Lightning-Browser overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monaco-editor or Lightning-Browser more popular?
monaco-editor has 46,944 GitHub stars and Lightning-Browser has 2,452. monaco-editor has the larger community by that measure.
Are monaco-editor and Lightning-Browser free?
Both are open source. monaco-editor is licensed under MIT and Lightning-Browser under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monaco-editor and Lightning-Browser?
monaco-editor is written in JavaScript and Lightning-Browser in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, monaco-editor or Lightning-Browser?
Choose monaco-editor if you want the larger community (46,944 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Lightning-Browser if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.