head to head · open source
Skyvern vs browserless
Skyvern has 23,039 GitHub stars, 2,167 forks, 234 open issues and last shipped today. browserless has 1,836 stars, 91 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped today. Skyvern leads on adoption by 1,155% (23,039 vs 1,836 stars). Skyvern is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; browserless is written in JavaScript under MIT. Skyvern has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, browserless 5%. browserless was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (automation, browser, puppeteer), 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
| Skyvern | browserless | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 91 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Skyvern if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick browserless if
- You want the browserless feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and browserless fits your workflow better
About Skyvern
Skyvern is an open source Python project for automating browser based workflows with LLMs and computer vision. It lives in the browser automation and AI agent ecosystem, and it provides a Playwright compatible SDK that adds AI functionality on top of Playwright. The project also includes a no code workflow builder, so technical users can work through code while non technical users can define tasks through the interface.
read the full Skyvern overview →
About browserless
Browserless is an MIT licensed JavaScript library that drives headless Chrome and Chromium on top of Puppeteer, giving Node.js applications a production ready API for screenshots, PDFs, and extracted text or HTML.
read the full browserless overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Skyvern or browserless more popular?
Skyvern has 23,039 GitHub stars and browserless has 1,836. Skyvern has the larger community by that measure.
Are Skyvern and browserless free?
Both are open source. Skyvern is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and browserless under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Skyvern and browserless?
Skyvern is written in Python and browserless 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, Skyvern or browserless?
Choose Skyvern if you want the larger community (23,039 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose browserless if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.