head to head · open source
puppeteer vs carbon-now-cli
puppeteer has 95,791 GitHub stars, 9,600 forks, 259 open issues and last shipped yesterday. carbon-now-cli has 6,030 stars, 125 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. puppeteer leads on adoption by 1,489% (95,791 vs 6,030 stars). puppeteer is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; carbon-now-cli is written in TypeScript under MIT. puppeteer has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, carbon-now-cli 2%. puppeteer 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
| puppeteer | carbon-now-cli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 125 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick puppeteer if
- You weight community size — 96K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick carbon-now-cli if
- You want the carbon-now-cli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and carbon-now-cli fits your workflow better
About puppeteer
Puppeteer Puppeteer is a JavaScript library which provides a high level API to control Chrome or Firefox over the DevTools Protocol or WebDriver BiDi. Puppeteer runs in the headless (no visible UI) by default Get started API FAQ Contributing Troubleshooting Installation :::note Modern package managers (including npm (see the RFC), pnpm, Yarn, Bun, and Deno) block dependency install scripts by default. If the install script is blocked, Puppeteer will not download the browser during installation, leading to runtime errors. You can manually download the required browsers after installation by running…
read the full puppeteer overview →
About carbon-now-cli
🎨 Beautiful images of your code — from right inside your terminal. Table of Contents Description Features Installation Usage Presets License Examples Description carbon now cli brings the power of Carbon directly to your terminal. ⚡️ Generate beautiful images of your code with a single command. Want to customize everything before generating the image? Run it in interactive mode. 💅 Features 🖼 Downloads the real, high quality image (no DOM screenshots) ✨ Detects file type automatically 🗂 Supports all languages & covers extra ground ⚡️ Interactive mode via interactive 🎒 Presets via preset to save and re use…
read the full carbon-now-cli overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is puppeteer or carbon-now-cli more popular?
puppeteer has 95,791 GitHub stars and carbon-now-cli has 6,030. puppeteer has the larger community by that measure.
Are puppeteer and carbon-now-cli free?
Both are open source. puppeteer is licensed under Apache-2.0 and carbon-now-cli under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between puppeteer and carbon-now-cli?
puppeteer is written in TypeScript and carbon-now-cli 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, puppeteer or carbon-now-cli?
Choose puppeteer if you want the larger community (95,791 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose carbon-now-cli if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.