head to head · open source
stagehand vs brightdata-mcp
stagehand has 25,950 GitHub stars, 1,809 forks, 376 open issues and last shipped today. brightdata-mcp has 2,711 stars, 337 forks, 40 open issues and last shipped yesterday. stagehand leads on adoption by 857% (25,950 vs 2,711 stars). stagehand is written in TypeScript under MIT; brightdata-mcp is written in JavaScript under MIT. stagehand has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, brightdata-mcp 12%. stagehand was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ai-agents, browser-automation, data-extraction), 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
| stagehand | brightdata-mcp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 337 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick stagehand if
- You weight community size — 26K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick brightdata-mcp if
- You want the brightdata-mcp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and brightdata-mcp fits your workflow better
About stagehand
Stagehand is the SDK to extract data and interact with any site on the web. Playwright was built for testing. Stagehand is built for agents, in TypeScript, Python, and Go. Docs · Quickstart · ⭐ Star this repo AI that uses the browser like humans. Sign in once, keep the session, and pull structured data out the other side. Python Go Install Python Go Local runs need Chrome installed. Full setup: Quickstart. Why Stagehand Token efficiency Hybrid accessibilit
read the full stagehand overview →
About brightdata-mcp
Bright Data MCP Web search, page scraping, structured data extraction, and browser automation for AI agents and LLMs over the Model Context Protocol. Works with AI agents, coding agents, chat assistants, and any MCP compatible client. Quick Start • Pricing • Use Cases • Tools • Agent Skills • Docs • Support Free tier: 5,000 requests per month. No credit card required. Renews monthly. Overview The Bright Data MCP server gives AI agents real time access to public web data. It exposes 69 tools covering: Web search — Google, Bing, and Yandex results as structured data Page scraping — any URL as Markdown or HTML…
read the full brightdata-mcp overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is stagehand or brightdata-mcp more popular?
stagehand has 25,950 GitHub stars and brightdata-mcp has 2,711. stagehand has the larger community by that measure.
Are stagehand and brightdata-mcp free?
Both are open source. stagehand is licensed under MIT and brightdata-mcp under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between stagehand and brightdata-mcp?
stagehand is written in TypeScript and brightdata-mcp 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, stagehand or brightdata-mcp?
Choose stagehand if you want the larger community (25,950 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose brightdata-mcp if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.