head to head · open source
servo vs obscura
servo has 38,013 GitHub stars, 3,800 forks, 3,209 open issues and last shipped today. obscura has 27,406 stars, 2,011 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped yesterday. servo leads on adoption by 39% (38,013 vs 27,406 stars). servo is written in Rust under MPL-2.0; obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. servo has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, obscura 7%. servo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (browser, rust), 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
| servo | obscura | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 27K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick servo if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- 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 servo
Servo is a prototype web browser engine written in the Rust programming language. It is developed on 64 bit macOS, 64 bit Linux, 64 bit Windows, 64 bit OpenHarmony, and Android, and it lives in the Rust ecosystem as an open source project licensed under MPL 2.0. The repository carries the topics browser, rust, servo, web, webbrowser, webengine, and webplatform, and the project describes itself as aiming to empower developers with a lightweight, high performance alternative for embedding web technologies in applications. Documentation lives in the Servo Book, with news and guides at servo.org.
read the full servo 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 servo or obscura more popular?
servo has 38,013 GitHub stars and obscura has 27,406. servo has the larger community by that measure.
Are servo and obscura free?
Both are open source. servo is licensed under MPL-2.0 and obscura under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between servo and obscura?
servo is written in Rust 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, servo or obscura?
Choose servo if you want the larger community (38,013 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose obscura if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.