head to head · open source
Zen Browser vs badssl.com
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars, 1,946 forks, 689 open issues and last shipped yesterday. badssl.com has 3,056 stars, 205 forks, 210 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Zen Browser leads on adoption by 1,389% (45,517 vs 3,056 stars). Zen Browser is written in C++ under MPL-2.0; badssl.com is written in HTML under Apache-2.0. Zen Browser has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, badssl.com 7%. Zen Browser 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
| Zen Browser | badssl.com | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 205 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zen Browser if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick badssl.com if
- You want the badssl.com feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and badssl.com fits your workflow better
About Zen Browser
Zen Browser Zen is a firefox based browser with the aim of pushing your productivity to a new level! Download • Website • Documentation • Release Notes Firefox Versions Release Is currently built using Firefox version 155.0.1 ! Twilight Is currently built using Firefox version RC 155.0.1 ! Contributing If you'd like to report a bug, please do so on our GitHub Issues page and for feature requests, you can use GitHub Discussions. Zen is an open source project, and we welcome contributions from the community! Please take a look at the contribution guidelines before getting started! Partners Thanks to all the…
read the full Zen Browser overview →
About badssl.com
Visit badssl.com for a list of test subdomains, including: self signed.badssl.com expired.badssl.com mixed.badssl.com rc4.badssl.com hsts.badssl.com Server Setup Stock Ubuntu VM, DNS A records for badssl.com. and .badssl.com. pointing to the VM. Testing and development 1. Follow the instructions to install Docker. 2. Clone into the badssl repo by running git clone && cd badssl.com . 3. In order to access the various badssl subdomains locally you will need to add them to your system hosts file. Run make list hosts and copy and paste the output into /etc/hosts . 4. Start Docker by running make serve . 5. You can…
read the full badssl.com overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zen Browser or badssl.com more popular?
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars and badssl.com has 3,056. Zen Browser has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen Browser and badssl.com free?
Both are open source. Zen Browser is licensed under MPL-2.0 and badssl.com under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen Browser and badssl.com?
Zen Browser is written in C++ and badssl.com in HTML. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zen Browser or badssl.com?
Choose Zen Browser if you want the larger community (45,517 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose badssl.com if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.