head to head · open source
uBlock vs BrowserOS
uBlock has 67,923 GitHub stars, 4,353 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BrowserOS has 13,700 stars, 1,454 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped yesterday. uBlock leads on adoption by 396% (67,923 vs 13,700 stars). uBlock is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; BrowserOS is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. uBlock has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, BrowserOS 11%. uBlock was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chromium), 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
| uBlock | BrowserOS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 68K | ★ 14K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.4K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick uBlock if
- You weight community size — 68K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick BrowserOS if
- You want the BrowserOS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and BrowserOS fits your workflow better
About uBlock
uBlock Origin is a CPU and memory efficient, wide spectrum content blocker for Chromium and Firefox, aimed at anyone who wants ads, trackers, coin miners, popups, anti blockers and malware sites neutralised by default without hand tuning anything.
read the full uBlock overview →
About BrowserOS
BrowserOS is an open source agentic browser, written in TypeScript under AGPL 3.0, that puts AI agents inside a real Chromium browser on the user's own machine so they can work with real logged in accounts, and it is aimed at people who already use an agent harness such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or any MCP agent and want that agent to handle web tasks instead of a sandbox.
read the full BrowserOS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is uBlock or BrowserOS more popular?
uBlock has 67,923 GitHub stars and BrowserOS has 13,700. uBlock has the larger community by that measure.
Are uBlock and BrowserOS free?
Both are open source. uBlock is licensed under GPL-3.0 and BrowserOS under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between uBlock and BrowserOS?
uBlock is written in JavaScript and BrowserOS in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, uBlock or BrowserOS?
Choose uBlock if you want the larger community (67,923 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose BrowserOS if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.