head to head · open source
page-agent vs ferret
page-agent has 29,619 GitHub stars, 2,643 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ferret has 6,020 stars, 325 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped yesterday. page-agent leads on adoption by 392% (29,619 vs 6,020 stars). page-agent is written in TypeScript under MIT; ferret is written in Go under Apache-2.0. page-agent has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, ferret 5%. page-agent 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
| page-agent | ferret | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 325 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick page-agent if
- You weight community size — 30K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ferret if
- You want the ferret feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ferret fits your workflow better
About page-agent
Page Agent The GUI Agent Living in Your Webpage. One script gives any web page its own AI agent. 🌐 English 中文 🚀 Demo 📖 Docs 📢 HN Discussion 𝕏 Follow on X ✨ Features 🎯 Easy integration No need for browser extension / python / headless browser . Just in page javascript. Everything happens in your web page. 📖 Text based DOM manipulation No screenshots. No multi modal LLMs or special permissions needed. 🧠 Bring your own LLMs Works with most mainstream models, including locally deployed ones. See supported models. 🐙 Optional chrome extension for multi page tasks. And an MCP Server (Beta) to control it from…
read the full page-agent overview →
About ferret
Ferret Try it! Docs CLI Test runner Web worker Explore Ferret v2 Ferret v2 is currently in alpha. You can try the new syntax in the playground and read more about the design behind the new runtime and language capabilities: Try Ferret v2 in the Playground On the Road to Ferret v2 Inside Ferret v2: The New Execution Model Inside Ferret v2: New Language Capabilities Notice: This branch contains the upcoming Ferret v2 . For the stable v1 release, please visit Ferret v1. What is it? Ferret is a declarative first, expression oriented embedded language and runtime for data automation. FQL combines querying…
read the full ferret overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is page-agent or ferret more popular?
page-agent has 29,619 GitHub stars and ferret has 6,020. page-agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are page-agent and ferret free?
Both are open source. page-agent is licensed under MIT and ferret under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between page-agent and ferret?
page-agent is written in TypeScript and ferret in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, page-agent or ferret?
Choose page-agent if you want the larger community (29,619 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ferret if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.