head to head · open source
Ladybird vs servo
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars, 3,194 forks, 535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. servo has 38,301 stars, 3,865 forks, 3,209 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ladybird leads on adoption by 74% (66,807 vs 38,301 stars). Ladybird is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; servo is written in Rust under MPL-2.0. Ladybird has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, servo 10%. servo 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
| Ladybird | servo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 67K | ★ 38K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 3.9K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ladybird if
- You weight community size — 67K 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 servo if
- You want the servo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and servo fits your workflow better
About Ladybird
Ladybird Ladybird is a truly independent web browser, using a novel engine based on web standards. [!IMPORTANT] Ladybird is in a pre alpha state, and only suitable for use by developers Features We aim to build a complete, usable browser for the modern web. Ladybird uses a multi process architecture with a main UI process, several WebContent renderer processes, an ImageDecoder process, and a RequestServer process. Image decoding and network connections are done out of process to be more robust against malicious content. Each tab has its own renderer process, which is sandboxed from the rest of the system. At the…
read the full Ladybird overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ladybird or servo more popular?
Ladybird has 66,807 GitHub stars and servo has 38,301. Ladybird has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ladybird and servo free?
Both are open source. Ladybird is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and servo under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ladybird and servo?
Ladybird is written in C++ and servo 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, Ladybird or servo?
Choose Ladybird if you want the larger community (66,807 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose servo if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.