head to head · open source
Ladybird vs obscura
Ladybird has 66,257 GitHub stars, 3,165 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped today. obscura has 27,406 stars, 2,011 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ladybird leads on adoption by 142% (66,257 vs 27,406 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, obscura 7%. Ladybird 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
| Ladybird | obscura | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 66K | ★ 27K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ladybird if
- You weight community size — 66K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick obscura if
- You want the obscura feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and obscura fits your workflow better
About Ladybird
Ladybird is a truly independent web browser and browser engine, written from scratch in C++ rather than as a fork of any existing engine, and it is built for developers who want to work on a browser engine based on web standards while it remains in a pre alpha state.
read the full Ladybird overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or obscura more popular?
Ladybird has 66,257 GitHub stars and obscura has 27,406. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and obscura free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and obscura under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and obscura?
Ladybird is written in C++ and obscura 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, Ladybird or obscura?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,257 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose obscura if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.