head to head · open source
stagehand vs zendriver
stagehand has 25,529 GitHub stars, 1,752 forks, 376 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. zendriver has 1,450 stars, 108 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. stagehand leads on adoption by 1,661% (25,529 vs 1,450 stars). stagehand is written in TypeScript under MIT; zendriver is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. stagehand has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, zendriver 7%. stagehand was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (browser-automation, python), 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 | zendriver | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-02 | 2026-10-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 108 |
| 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 zendriver if
- You want the zendriver feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and zendriver fits your workflow better
About stagehand
Stagehand is the MIT licensed SDK for extracting data and interacting with any site on the web, available in TypeScript, Python, and Go, and aimed at developers building AI agents that need to drive a browser the way a person does rather than at engineers writing test suites.
read the full stagehand overview →
About zendriver
Zendriver is a Python framework for undetectable, asynchronous web scraping and browser automation that drives a real Chrome instance over the Chrome DevTools Protocol instead of Selenium or WebDriver.
read the full zendriver overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is stagehand or zendriver more popular?
stagehand has 25,529 GitHub stars and zendriver has 1,450. stagehand has the larger community by that measure.
Are stagehand and zendriver free?
Both are open source. stagehand is licensed under MIT and zendriver under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between stagehand and zendriver?
stagehand is written in TypeScript and zendriver in Python. 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 zendriver?
Choose stagehand if you want the larger community (25,529 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zendriver if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.