head to head · open source
puppeteer vs mex
puppeteer has 95,617 GitHub stars, 9,581 forks, 259 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. mex has 1,703 stars, 131 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped yesterday. puppeteer leads on adoption by 5,515% (95,617 vs 1,703 stars). puppeteer is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; mex is written in TypeScript under MIT. puppeteer has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, mex 8%. mex was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (developer-tools), 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
| puppeteer | mex | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 131 |
| 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 mex if
- You want the mex feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and mex fits your workflow better
About puppeteer
Puppeteer is an Apache 2.0 JavaScript and TypeScript library that provides a high level API for driving Chrome and Firefox over the DevTools Protocol or WebDriver BiDi, written for developers who automate browsers from Node.js.
read the full puppeteer overview →
About mex
MEX is an MIT licensed, TypeScript based tool that gives engineering teams and their coding agents a shared project memory kept as readable Markdown inside the repository and shared through ordinary Git commits, pushes, and pulls.
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Frequently asked questions
Is puppeteer or mex more popular?
puppeteer has 95,617 GitHub stars and mex has 1,703. puppeteer has the larger community by that measure.
Are puppeteer and mex free?
Both are open source. puppeteer is licensed under Apache-2.0 and mex under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between puppeteer and mex?
puppeteer is written in TypeScript and mex 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 mex?
Choose puppeteer if you want the larger community (95,617 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose mex if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.