head to head · open source
puppeteer vs skaffold
puppeteer has 95,643 GitHub stars, 9,584 forks, 259 open issues and last shipped yesterday. skaffold has 15,897 stars, 1,705 forks, 914 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. puppeteer leads on adoption by 502% (95,643 vs 15,897 stars). puppeteer is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; skaffold is written in Go under Apache-2.0. puppeteer has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, skaffold 11%. puppeteer 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 | skaffold | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 1.7K |
| 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 skaffold if
- You want the skaffold feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and skaffold 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 skaffold
Skaffold is a command line tool for continuous development of Kubernetes applications, aimed at developers who iterate on source code locally and deploy it to local or remote Kubernetes clusters.
read the full skaffold overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is puppeteer or skaffold more popular?
puppeteer has 95,643 GitHub stars and skaffold has 15,897. puppeteer has the larger community by that measure.
Are puppeteer and skaffold free?
Both are open source. puppeteer is licensed under Apache-2.0 and skaffold under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between puppeteer and skaffold?
puppeteer is written in TypeScript and skaffold in Go. 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 skaffold?
Choose puppeteer if you want the larger community (95,643 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose skaffold if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.