head to head · open source
obscura vs Helium
obscura has 30,141 GitHub stars, 2,279 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Helium has 22,283 stars, 680 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. obscura leads on adoption by 35% (30,141 vs 22,283 stars). obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Helium is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. obscura has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Helium 3%. obscura 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
| obscura | Helium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 22K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 680 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick obscura if
- You weight community size — 30K 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 Helium if
- You want the Helium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and Helium fits your workflow better
About obscura
Obscura The open source headless browser for AI agents and web scraping. Lightweight, stealthy, and built in Rust. Native rendering is here. No Chromium required. 🎉 Capture screenshots, screencast live pages, and export PDFs directly with Obscura. Obscura is a headless browser engine written in Rust, built for web scraping and AI agent automation. It runs real JavaScript via V8, supports the Chrome DevTools Protocol, and acts as a drop in replacement for headless Chrome with Puppeteer and Playwright. Why Obscura over headless Chrome? Obscura inspired Cloudflare Kitesurf’s first prototype Cloudflare began by…
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About Helium
Helium The Chromium based web browser made for people, with love. Privacy first with unbiased ad blocking. No bloat and no noise. helium.computer Downloads [!NOTE] Helium is currently in beta, so unexpected issues may occur. Please report them if they haven't already been reported. The easiest way to download Helium is helium.computer. It'll pick a compatible binary for your platform automatically. The same releases can also be downloaded from source on GitHub: Latest macOS release Latest Linux release Latest Windows release Helium repos All Helium packaging, tooling, services, and components are open source and…
read the full Helium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obscura or Helium more popular?
obscura has 30,141 GitHub stars and Helium has 22,283. obscura has the larger community by that measure.
Are obscura and Helium free?
Both are open source. obscura is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Helium under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obscura and Helium?
obscura is written in Rust and Helium 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, obscura or Helium?
Choose obscura if you want the larger community (30,141 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Helium if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.