head to head · open source
puppeteer vs msw
puppeteer has 95,791 GitHub stars, 9,600 forks, 259 open issues and last shipped yesterday. msw has 18,329 stars, 644 forks, 37 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. puppeteer leads on adoption by 423% (95,791 vs 18,329 stars). puppeteer is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; msw is written in TypeScript under MIT. puppeteer has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, msw 4%. 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 | msw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 18K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 644 |
| 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 msw if
- You want the msw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and msw 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 msw
Mock Service Worker Industry standard API mocking for JavaScript. Join our Discord server Features Seamless . A dedicated layer of requests interception at your disposal. Keep your application's code and tests unaware of whether something is mocked or not. Deviation free . Request the same production resources and test the actual behavior of your app. Augment an existing API, or design it as you go when there is none. Familiar & Powerful . Use Express like routing syntax to intercept requests. Use parameters, wildcards, and regular expressions to match requests, and respond with necessary status codes, headers…
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Frequently asked questions
Is puppeteer or msw more popular?
puppeteer has 95,791 GitHub stars and msw has 18,329. puppeteer has the larger community by that measure.
Are puppeteer and msw free?
Both are open source. puppeteer is licensed under Apache-2.0 and msw under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between puppeteer and msw?
puppeteer is written in TypeScript and msw 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 msw?
Choose puppeteer if you want the larger community (95,791 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose msw if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.