head to head · open source
Skyvern vs ferret
Skyvern has 23,336 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 234 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ferret has 6,021 stars, 325 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Skyvern leads on adoption by 288% (23,336 vs 6,021 stars). Skyvern is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; ferret is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Skyvern has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ferret 5%. Skyvern was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser-automation), 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 | ferret | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 325 |
| 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 ferret if
- You want the ferret feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ferret fits your workflow better
About Skyvern
🐉 Automate Browser based workflows using LLMs and Computer Vision 🐉 Skyvern automates browser based workflows using LLMs and computer vision. It provides a Playwright compatible SDK that adds AI functionality on top of playwright, as well as a no code workflow builder to help both technical and non technical users automate manual workflows on any website, replacing brittle or unreliable automation solutions. Traditional approaches to browser automations required writing custom scripts for websites, often relying on DOM parsing and XPath based interactions which would break whenever the website layouts changed…
read the full Skyvern overview →
About ferret
Ferret Try it! Docs CLI Test runner Web worker Explore Ferret v2 Ferret v2 is currently in alpha. You can try the new syntax in the playground and read more about the design behind the new runtime and language capabilities: Try Ferret v2 in the Playground On the Road to Ferret v2 Inside Ferret v2: The New Execution Model Inside Ferret v2: New Language Capabilities Notice: This branch contains the upcoming Ferret v2 . For the stable v1 release, please visit Ferret v1. What is it? Ferret is a declarative first, expression oriented embedded language and runtime for data automation. FQL combines querying…
read the full ferret overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Skyvern or ferret more popular?
Skyvern has 23,336 GitHub stars and ferret has 6,021. Skyvern has the larger community by that measure.
Are Skyvern and ferret free?
Both are open source. Skyvern is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and ferret under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Skyvern and ferret?
Skyvern is written in Python and ferret in Go. 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 ferret?
Choose Skyvern if you want the larger community (23,336 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose ferret if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.