head to head · open source
obscura vs browser-agent
obscura has 27,406 GitHub stars, 2,011 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. browser-agent has 4,128 stars, 238 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. obscura leads on adoption by 564% (27,406 vs 4,128 stars). obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; browser-agent is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. obscura has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, browser-agent 6%. obscura was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (browser, playwright), 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
| obscura | browser-agent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 4.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-02-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 238 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick obscura if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick browser-agent if
- You want the browser-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and browser-agent fits your workflow better
About obscura
Obscura is an open source headless browser engine written in Rust, built for web scraping and AI agent automation. It runs real JavaScript through V8, speaks the Chrome DevTools Protocol, and presents itself as a drop in replacement for headless Chrome when driven by Puppeteer or Playwright. The project lives in the browser automation and headless browser corner of the Rust ecosystem, and it ships under the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full obscura overview →
About browser-agent
Magnitude is an open source, vision first browser agent written in TypeScript that lets developers control a real browser with natural language, and it is aimed at engineers who need to automate repetitive web work, move data between applications that lack APIs, or test web interfaces rather than click through them by hand.
read the full browser-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obscura or browser-agent more popular?
obscura has 27,406 GitHub stars and browser-agent has 4,128. obscura has the larger community by that measure.
Are obscura and browser-agent free?
Both are open source. obscura is licensed under Apache-2.0 and browser-agent under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obscura and browser-agent?
obscura is written in Rust and browser-agent in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, obscura or browser-agent?
Choose obscura if you want the larger community (27,406 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose browser-agent if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.