head to head · open source
puppeteer vs web-maker
puppeteer has 95,792 GitHub stars, 9,590 forks, 259 open issues and last shipped yesterday. web-maker has 2,708 stars, 326 forks, 120 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. puppeteer leads on adoption by 3,437% (95,792 vs 2,708 stars). puppeteer is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; web-maker is written in JavaScript under MIT. puppeteer has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, web-maker 12%. puppeteer was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (web), 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 | web-maker | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.6K | ⑂ 326 |
| 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 web-maker if
- You want the web-maker feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and web-maker 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 web-maker
Web Maker 🕸🛠 Web Maker is an offline playground for your web experiments. Something like CodePen or JSFiddle, but much more faster and works offline because it runs completely on your system. Open Web App (Recommended: More features. More fun!) or Install Chrome extension Features Supports Preprocessors: HTML (Pug & Markdown), CSS (SCSS, LESS & Stylus, Atomic CSS) & JavaScript (ES6, TypeScript & CoffeeScript) Works offline Quick creation (3 panemode) & good old Files mode Inbuilt Console Multi player collab mode Asset hosting (Local and Cloud storage) Save and load your creations Auto save feature Code auto…
read the full web-maker overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is puppeteer or web-maker more popular?
puppeteer has 95,792 GitHub stars and web-maker has 2,708. puppeteer has the larger community by that measure.
Are puppeteer and web-maker free?
Both are open source. puppeteer is licensed under Apache-2.0 and web-maker under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between puppeteer and web-maker?
puppeteer is written in TypeScript and web-maker in JavaScript. 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 web-maker?
Choose puppeteer if you want the larger community (95,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose web-maker if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.