head to head · open source
Zen Browser vs ghostty-web
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars, 1,946 forks, 689 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ghostty-web has 3,011 stars, 195 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Zen Browser leads on adoption by 1,412% (45,517 vs 3,011 stars). Zen Browser is written in C++ under MPL-2.0; ghostty-web is written in TypeScript under MIT. Zen Browser has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, ghostty-web 6%. 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 | ghostty-web | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 195 |
| 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 ghostty-web if
- You want the ghostty-web feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and ghostty-web 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 ghostty-web
ghostty web Ghostty for the web with xterm.js API compatibility — giving you a proper VT100 implementation in the browser. Migrate from xterm by changing your import: @xterm/xterm → ghostty web WASM compiled parser from Ghostty—the same code that runs the native app Zero runtime dependencies, 400KB WASM bundle Originally created for Mux (a desktop app for isolated, parallel agentic development), but designed to be used anywhere. Try It Live Demo on an ephemeral VM (thank you to Greg from disco.cloud for hosting). On your computer: This starts a loopback only HTTP server with a real shell on The demo protects /ws…
read the full ghostty-web overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zen Browser or ghostty-web more popular?
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars and ghostty-web has 3,011. Zen Browser has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen Browser and ghostty-web free?
Both are open source. Zen Browser is licensed under MPL-2.0 and ghostty-web under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen Browser and ghostty-web?
Zen Browser is written in C++ and ghostty-web 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, Zen Browser or ghostty-web?
Choose Zen Browser if you want the larger community (45,517 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose ghostty-web if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.