head to head · open source
obscura vs parchi
obscura has 30,307 GitHub stars, 2,291 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. parchi has 546 stars, 57 forks, 11 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. obscura leads on adoption by 5,451% (30,307 vs 546 stars). obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; parchi is written in TypeScript under MIT. obscura has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, parchi 10%. 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-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 | parchi | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 546 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 57 |
| 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 parchi if
- You want the parchi feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and parchi 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 parchi
Parchi AI powered browser copilot (Chrome/Firefox extension). Chat driven browser automation in a side panel: navigate, read, click, type, extract, and summarize. ⚠️ Safety Notice Browser automation can perform sensitive actions on your behalf. Use this tool only if you understand and accept the risks: automation may violate site terms of service prompt injection can cause unsafe actions sensitive information can be exposed if you run untrusted prompts/pages Always review model output and keep strict tool/domain controls enabled when needed. 📦 Installation Chrome (recommended) Then: 1. Open chrome://extensions…
read the full parchi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obscura or parchi more popular?
obscura has 30,307 GitHub stars and parchi has 546. obscura has the larger community by that measure.
Are obscura and parchi free?
Both are open source. obscura is licensed under Apache-2.0 and parchi under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obscura and parchi?
obscura is written in Rust and parchi 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 parchi?
Choose obscura if you want the larger community (30,307 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose parchi if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.