head to head · open source
serenity vs BrowserOS
serenity has 33,847 GitHub stars, 3,544 forks, 739 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BrowserOS has 13,718 stars, 1,459 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. serenity leads on adoption by 147% (33,847 vs 13,718 stars). serenity is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; BrowserOS is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. serenity has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, BrowserOS 11%. serenity was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| serenity | BrowserOS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 14K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick serenity if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick BrowserOS if
- You want the BrowserOS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and BrowserOS fits your workflow better
About serenity
SerenityOS is a graphical Unix like operating system built for 64 bit x86, Arm, and RISC V computers. It is written in C++ and released under the BSD 2 Clause license, and it lives in the open source operating system ecosystem alongside other hobbyist and research kernels. The project describes itself as a love letter to 1990s user interfaces paired with a custom Unix like core, aiming for a marriage between the aesthetic of late 1990s productivity software and the power user accessibility of late 2000s Unix systems.
read the full serenity overview →
About BrowserOS
BrowserOS is an open source agentic browser, written in TypeScript under AGPL 3.0, that puts AI agents inside a real Chromium browser on the user's own machine so they can work with real logged in accounts, and it is aimed at people who already use an agent harness such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or any MCP agent and want that agent to handle web tasks instead of a sandbox.
read the full BrowserOS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is serenity or BrowserOS more popular?
serenity has 33,847 GitHub stars and BrowserOS has 13,718. serenity has the larger community by that measure.
Are serenity and BrowserOS free?
Both are open source. serenity is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and BrowserOS under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between serenity and BrowserOS?
serenity is written in C++ and BrowserOS 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, serenity or BrowserOS?
Choose serenity if you want the larger community (33,847 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose BrowserOS if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.