head to head · open source
puppeteer vs Lightpanda
puppeteer has 95,792 GitHub stars, 9,590 forks, 259 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lightpanda has 41,174 stars, 2,024 forks, 98 open issues and last shipped today. puppeteer leads on adoption by 133% (95,792 vs 41,174 stars). puppeteer is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; Lightpanda is written in Zig under AGPL-3.0. puppeteer has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Lightpanda 5%. 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
| puppeteer | Lightpanda | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 41K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Zig |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| 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 Lightpanda if
- You want the Lightpanda feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Zig
- You evaluated both and Lightpanda 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 Lightpanda
Lightpanda Browser The headless browser built from scratch for AI agents and automation. Not a Chromium fork. Not a WebKit patch. A new browser, written in Zig.   Benchmarks Requesting 933 real web pages over the network on a AWS EC2 m5.large instance. See benchmark details. Quick start Install Package Managers Latest nightly from Homebrew: Latest nightly from Arch Linux User Repository: Download from the nightly builds You can download the last binary from the nightly builds for Linux and MacOS for both x86 64 and aarch64. For Linux Verify the binary before running anything: Linux aarch64 is also available…
read the full Lightpanda overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is puppeteer or Lightpanda more popular?
puppeteer has 95,792 GitHub stars and Lightpanda has 41,174. puppeteer has the larger community by that measure.
Are puppeteer and Lightpanda free?
Both are open source. puppeteer is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Lightpanda under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between puppeteer and Lightpanda?
puppeteer is written in TypeScript and Lightpanda in Zig. 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 Lightpanda?
Choose puppeteer if you want the larger community (95,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Lightpanda if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.