head to head · open source
uBlock vs obscura
uBlock has 67,923 GitHub stars, 4,353 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped yesterday. obscura has 27,331 stars, 2,005 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. uBlock leads on adoption by 149% (67,923 vs 27,331 stars). uBlock is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; obscura is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. uBlock has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, obscura 7%. uBlock was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | obscura | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 68K | ★ 27K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.4K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| 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 obscura if
- You want the obscura feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and obscura 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 obscura
Obscura is an open source headless browser engine written in Rust, built for web scraping and AI agent automation. It runs real JavaScript through V8, speaks the Chrome DevTools Protocol, and presents itself as a drop in replacement for headless Chrome when driven by Puppeteer or Playwright. The project lives in the browser automation and headless browser corner of the Rust ecosystem, and it ships under the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full obscura overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is uBlock or obscura more popular?
uBlock has 67,923 GitHub stars and obscura has 27,331. uBlock has the larger community by that measure.
Are uBlock and obscura free?
Both are open source. uBlock is licensed under GPL-3.0 and obscura under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between uBlock and obscura?
uBlock is written in JavaScript and obscura in Rust. 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 obscura?
Choose uBlock if you want the larger community (67,923 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose obscura if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.