head to head · open source
Zen Browser vs Thorium-Win
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars, 1,946 forks, 689 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Thorium-Win has 2,562 stars, 55 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 23 days ago. Zen Browser leads on adoption by 1,677% (45,517 vs 2,562 stars). Zen Browser is written in C++ under MPL-2.0; Thorium-Win is written in Batchfile under BSD-3-Clause. Zen Browser has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, Thorium-Win 2%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Zen Browser | Thorium-Win | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | C++ | Batchfile |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 55 |
| 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 Thorium-Win if
- You want the Thorium-Win feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Batchfile
- You evaluated both and Thorium-Win 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 Thorium-Win
Thorium for Windows Repo to serve Windows builds of Thorium! \ IMPORTANT: PLEASE USE THE NEW WINDOWS 7/8 REPO HERE FOR WINDOWS 7/8/8.1 RELEASES \ NEW: AVX2 Builds are now being served at This repo only hosts Windows builds. The other Thorium repos : Main repo that hosts the source code for all platforms and serves linux builds Windows AVX2 repo that serves AVX2 Windows builds MacOS builds for x64 and M1 ARM64 are here \ Android builds for ARM32 and ARM64 are here \ Raspberry Pi (ARM64) builds are here \ Builds for Windows 7/8/8.1 are here \ Windows on ARM (arm64) builds are here \ Special repo which serves…
read the full Thorium-Win 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 Thorium-Win more popular?
Zen Browser has 45,517 GitHub stars and Thorium-Win has 2,562. Zen Browser has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen Browser and Thorium-Win free?
Both are open source. Zen Browser is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Thorium-Win under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen Browser and Thorium-Win?
Zen Browser is written in C++ and Thorium-Win in Batchfile. 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 Thorium-Win?
Choose Zen Browser if you want the larger community (45,517 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Thorium-Win if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.