head to head · open source
stagehand vs pinchtab
stagehand has 25,934 GitHub stars, 1,808 forks, 376 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pinchtab has 10,550 stars, 791 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. stagehand leads on adoption by 146% (25,934 vs 10,550 stars). stagehand is written in TypeScript under MIT; pinchtab is written in Go under MIT. stagehand has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, pinchtab 7%. stagehand was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (browser-automation, cdp, headless-chrome), 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 | pinchtab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 791 |
| 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 pinchtab if
- You want the pinchtab feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and pinchtab 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 pinchtab
PinchTab Browser control for AI agents Small Go binary • HTTP API • Token efficient What is PinchTab? PinchTab is a standalone HTTP server that gives AI agents direct control over Chrome. For day to day local use, the server is typically installed as a user level daemon, allowing agent tools to reuse the same browser control plane running in the background. This installs the control plane server and starts a default headless Chrome instance, ready to accept requests from agents or manual API calls. PinchTab is designed first for local, single user control on a machine you manage. Remote and distributed layouts…
read the full pinchtab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is stagehand or pinchtab more popular?
stagehand has 25,934 GitHub stars and pinchtab has 10,550. stagehand has the larger community by that measure.
Are stagehand and pinchtab free?
Both are open source. stagehand is licensed under MIT and pinchtab under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between stagehand and pinchtab?
stagehand is written in TypeScript and pinchtab 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, stagehand or pinchtab?
Choose stagehand if you want the larger community (25,934 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pinchtab if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.