head to head · open source
obscura vs maxurl
obscura has 30,366 GitHub stars, 2,302 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped today. maxurl has 1,655 stars, 102 forks, 425 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. obscura leads on adoption by 1,735% (30,366 vs 1,655 stars). obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; maxurl is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. obscura has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, maxurl 6%. obscura 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
| obscura | maxurl | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 102 |
| 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 maxurl if
- You want the maxurl feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and maxurl 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…
read the full obscura overview →
About maxurl
English Português (Brasil) Image Max URL is a program that will try to find larger/original versions of images and videos, usually by replacing URL patterns. It currently contains support for \ 10,000 hardcoded websites (full list in sites.txt), but it also supports a number of generic engines (such as Wordpress and MediaWiki), which means it can work for many other websites as well. It is currently released as: Userscript: (most browsers) Stable: userscript smaller.user.js or OpenUserJS Development: userscript.user.js (recommended) It serves as the base for everything listed below. It also serves as a node…
read the full maxurl overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obscura or maxurl more popular?
obscura has 30,366 GitHub stars and maxurl has 1,655. obscura has the larger community by that measure.
Are obscura and maxurl free?
Both are open source. obscura is licensed under Apache-2.0 and maxurl under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obscura and maxurl?
obscura is written in Rust and maxurl in JavaScript. 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 maxurl?
Choose obscura if you want the larger community (30,366 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose maxurl if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.