head to head · open source
Zen Browser vs mue
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars, 1,946 forks, 689 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mue has 772 stars, 89 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. Zen Browser leads on adoption by 5,796% (45,517 vs 772 stars). Zen Browser is written in C++ under MPL-2.0; mue is written in JavaScript under BSD-3-Clause. Zen Browser has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, mue 12%. Zen Browser was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (firefox), 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
| Zen Browser | mue | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 772 |
| License | MPL-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 89 |
| 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 mue if
- You want the mue feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and mue 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 mue
Mue A fast, open and free to use browser extension that gives a new, fresh and customisable tab page to modern browsers. muetab.com 🤔 Why Mue? Beautiful and Minimalist Design Customisable Layout Widgets (such as weather, notes, bookmarks and more) Privacy Focused does not track your browsing activity Extensible with the Mue Marketplace Open Source under the BSD 3 License 🌶️ Installation Mue can be downloaded on the following browsers: Chrome Edge Firefox Whale and can be manually sideloaded on others using the files on GitHub Releases 🚀 Demo A fully featured demo of the tab extension is available in browser…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zen Browser or mue more popular?
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars and mue has 772. Zen Browser has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen Browser and mue free?
Both are open source. Zen Browser is licensed under MPL-2.0 and mue under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen Browser and mue?
Zen Browser is written in C++ and mue in JavaScript. 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 mue?
Choose Zen Browser if you want the larger community (45,517 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose mue if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.