head to head · open source
Lightpanda vs ProxmoxVE
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars, 1,680 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ProxmoxVE has 29,607 stars, 2,887 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda leads on adoption by 20% (35,409 vs 29,607 stars). Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0; ProxmoxVE is written in Shell under MIT. Lightpanda has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, ProxmoxVE 10%. Lightpanda was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Lightpanda | ProxmoxVE | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 35K | ★ 30K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Zig | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.7K | ⑂ 2.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Lightpanda if
- You weight community size — 35K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ProxmoxVE if
- You want the ProxmoxVE feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and ProxmoxVE fits your workflow better
About Lightpanda
Lightpanda is a headless browser built from scratch in Zig, designed specifically for AI agents and automation tasks. It is not a fork of Chromium or WebKit but a new implementation targeting performance and efficiency in automated web interactions. It lives in the browser automation ecosystem, competing with tools like Puppeteer and Playwright that typically rely on Chromium based headless modes.
read the full Lightpanda overview →
About ProxmoxVE
Proxmox VE Helper Scripts (Community Edition) is a collection of Shell scripts that install and configure self hosted services as containers or virtual machines on Proxmox VE. It is a community project built on the foundation of @tteck's original work, distributed under the MIT license, and it lives in the Proxmox VE and homelab ecosystem alongside LXC, Docker, Debian, Ubuntu, and Alpine tooling. The scripts cover hundreds of services across home automation, media, networking, monitoring, databases, security, and developer tooling.
read the full ProxmoxVE overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Lightpanda or ProxmoxVE more popular?
Lightpanda has 35,409 GitHub stars and ProxmoxVE has 29,607. Lightpanda has the larger community by that measure.
Are Lightpanda and ProxmoxVE free?
Both are open source. Lightpanda is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and ProxmoxVE under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Lightpanda and ProxmoxVE?
Lightpanda is written in Zig and ProxmoxVE in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Lightpanda or ProxmoxVE?
Choose Lightpanda if you want the larger community (35,409 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose ProxmoxVE if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.