head to head · open source
page-agent vs pinchtab
page-agent has 29,619 GitHub stars, 2,643 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pinchtab has 10,539 stars, 789 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. page-agent leads on adoption by 181% (29,619 vs 10,539 stars). page-agent is written in TypeScript under MIT; pinchtab is written in Go under MIT. page-agent has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, pinchtab 7%. 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 | pinchtab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 789 |
| 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 pinchtab if
- You want the pinchtab feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pinchtab 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 pinchtab
PinchTab Browser control for AI agents Small Go binary • HTTP API • Token efficient What is PinchTab? PinchTab is a standalone HTTP server that gives AI agents direct control over Chrome. For day to day local use, the server is typically installed as a user level daemon, allowing agent tools to reuse the same browser control plane running in the background. This installs the control plane server and starts a default headless Chrome instance, ready to accept requests from agents or manual API calls. PinchTab is designed first for local, single user control on a machine you manage. Remote and distributed layouts…
read the full pinchtab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is page-agent or pinchtab more popular?
page-agent has 29,619 GitHub stars and pinchtab has 10,539. page-agent has the larger community by that measure.
Are page-agent and pinchtab free?
Both are open source. page-agent is licensed under MIT and pinchtab under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between page-agent and pinchtab?
page-agent is written in TypeScript and pinchtab 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 pinchtab?
Choose page-agent if you want the larger community (29,619 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pinchtab if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.