head to head · open source
obscura vs nanobrowser
obscura has 27,406 GitHub stars, 2,011 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nanobrowser has 13,810 stars, 1,459 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. obscura leads on adoption by 98% (27,406 vs 13,810 stars). obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; nanobrowser is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. obscura has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, nanobrowser 11%. 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, browser-automation), 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 | nanobrowser | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-08-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 nanobrowser if
- You want the nanobrowser 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 nanobrowser 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 nanobrowser
Nanobrowser is an open source Chrome extension for AI powered web automation that runs multi agent workflows inside your own browser using your own LLM API key, built for people who want Operator style browser agents without a subscription.
read the full nanobrowser overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obscura or nanobrowser more popular?
obscura has 27,406 GitHub stars and nanobrowser has 13,810. obscura has the larger community by that measure.
Are obscura and nanobrowser free?
Both are open source. obscura is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nanobrowser under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obscura and nanobrowser?
obscura is written in Rust and nanobrowser 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 nanobrowser?
Choose obscura if you want the larger community (27,406 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nanobrowser if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.