head to head · open source
servo vs Harper
servo has 38,301 GitHub stars, 3,865 forks, 3,209 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harper has 17,365 stars, 794 forks, 896 open issues and last shipped yesterday. servo leads on adoption by 121% (38,301 vs 17,365 stars). servo is written in Rust under MPL-2.0; Harper is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. servo has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Harper 5%. Harper was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (rust), 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
| servo | Harper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 17K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 794 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick servo if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Harper if
- You want the Harper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Harper fits your workflow better
About servo
The Servo Parallel Browser Engine Project Servo is a prototype web browser engine written in the Rust language. It is currently developed on 64 bit macOS, 64 bit Linux, 64 bit Windows, 64 bit OpenHarmony, and Android. Servo welcomes contribution from everyone. Check out: The Servo Book for documentation servo.org for news and guides Coordination of Servo development happens: Here in the Github Issues On the Servo Zulip In video calls advertised in the Servo Project repo. Getting started For more detailed build instructions, see the Servo Book under [Getting the Code] and [Building Servo]. [Getting the Code]…
read the full servo overview →
About Harper
Harper Harper is an English grammar checker designed to be just right. I created it after years of dealing with the shortcomings of the competition. Grammarly was too expensive and too overbearing. Its suggestions lacked context, and were often just plain wrong . Not to mention: it's a privacy nightmare. Everything you write with Grammarly is sent to their servers. Their privacy policy claims they don't sell the data, but that doesn't mean they don't use it to train large language models and god knows what else. Not only that, but the round trip time of the network request makes revising your work all the more…
read the full Harper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is servo or Harper more popular?
servo has 38,301 GitHub stars and Harper has 17,365. servo has the larger community by that measure.
Are servo and Harper free?
Both are open source. servo is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Harper under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between servo and Harper?
servo is written in Rust and Harper in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, servo or Harper?
Choose servo if you want the larger community (38,301 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Harper if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.