head to head · open source
Zen Browser vs serenity
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars, 1,946 forks, 689 open issues and last shipped yesterday. serenity has 33,938 stars, 3,488 forks, 739 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zen Browser leads on adoption by 34% (45,517 vs 33,938 stars). Zen Browser is written in C++ under MPL-2.0; serenity is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause. Zen Browser has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, serenity 10%. Zen Browser 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
| Zen Browser | serenity | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 34K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 3.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zen Browser if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick serenity if
- You want the serenity feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and serenity fits your workflow better
About Zen Browser
Zen Browser Zen is a firefox based browser with the aim of pushing your productivity to a new level! Download • Website • Documentation • Release Notes Firefox Versions Release Is currently built using Firefox version 155.0.1 ! Twilight Is currently built using Firefox version RC 155.0.1 ! Contributing If you'd like to report a bug, please do so on our GitHub Issues page and for feature requests, you can use GitHub Discussions. Zen is an open source project, and we welcome contributions from the community! Please take a look at the contribution guidelines before getting started! Partners Thanks to all the…
read the full Zen Browser overview →
About serenity
SerenityOS Graphical Unix like operating system for 64 bit x86, Arm, and RISC V computers. FAQ Documentation Build Instructions About SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom Unix like core. It flatters with sincerity by stealing beautiful ideas from various other systems. Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of late 1990s productivity software and the power user accessibility of late 2000s \ nix. This is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like. You can watch videos of the system being developed on YouTube: Andreas Kling's channel Linus Groh's…
read the full serenity overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zen Browser or serenity more popular?
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars and serenity has 33,938. Zen Browser has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen Browser and serenity free?
Both are open source. Zen Browser is licensed under MPL-2.0 and serenity under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen Browser and serenity?
Zen Browser is written in C++ and serenity in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zen Browser or serenity?
Choose Zen Browser if you want the larger community (45,517 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose serenity if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.