head to head · open source
Zen Browser vs Harper
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars, 1,946 forks, 689 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Harper has 17,365 stars, 794 forks, 896 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zen Browser leads on adoption by 162% (45,517 vs 17,365 stars). Zen Browser is written in C++ under MPL-2.0; Harper is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Zen Browser has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, Harper 5%. Harper 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Zen Browser | Harper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 17K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 794 |
| 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 Harper if
- You want the Harper 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 Harper 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 Harper
Harper Harper is an English grammar checker designed to be just right. I created it after years of dealing with the shortcomings of the competition. Grammarly was too expensive and too overbearing. Its suggestions lacked context, and were often just plain wrong . Not to mention: it's a privacy nightmare. Everything you write with Grammarly is sent to their servers. Their privacy policy claims they don't sell the data, but that doesn't mean they don't use it to train large language models and god knows what else. Not only that, but the round trip time of the network request makes revising your work all the more…
read the full Harper overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Browsers & Extensions projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Browsers & Extensions field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Zen Browser or Harper more popular?
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars and Harper has 17,365. Zen Browser has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen Browser and Harper free?
Both are open source. Zen Browser is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Harper under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen Browser and Harper?
Zen Browser is written in C++ and Harper 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, Zen Browser or Harper?
Choose Zen Browser if you want the larger community (45,517 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Harper if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.