Lightpanda
lightpanda-io/browserReviewed by AI
What it does
Lightpanda is a browser with no window, written from scratch in Zig for automation and AI agents. From a terminal it can dump a page as HTML, Markdown or structured data, or run as a server that Puppeteer, Playwright and WebDriver scripts connect to, and it has an agent mode plus an MCP server so an AI assistant can browse for you. It is for developers and people who automate or scrape websites. It runs on Linux and macOS (Windows only inside WSL), as a downloaded binary or a Docker image. Usage telemetry is on unless you turn it off.
How easy it is to install
C · install 1 or 2 tools · macOS
- Windows D
- macOS C
- Linux C
macOS and Linux are a C: you install it with Homebrew or download one file, make it executable and then type commands such as './lightpanda serve' in a terminal; a Docker image is also offered. Windows is a D, because the README says there is no native Windows build and you have to install WSL2 and use the Linux steps inside it.
Numbers on GitHub
- Stars
- 39,271on Oct 31, 2026
- Downloads
- —all releases
- Growth
- +2,240stars in 5 days
Stars over time
No star history yet.
Facts
- Runs on
- Linux, macOS, Windows
- You need to install
- Docker, Node.js
- To build from source
- Docker
- Disk space
- not determined
- Accounts or keys
- OpenAI, OpenRouter, Anthropic
- Cost
- Free · The browser is free and open source under AGPL-3.0. Only the optional agent mode needs a paid model provider, and it can also run with local models or with --no-llm.
- License
- AGPL-3.0 (Copyleft)
- Can replace
- Browserbase, Bright Data
- Last update
- Nov 1, 2026
Risk signals (5)
- Attentiontelemetry on by default
README 'Telemetry': 'By default, Lightpanda collects and sends usage telemetry. This can be disabled by setting an environment variable LIGHTPANDA_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=true.'
AI review
- Attentionrobots txt only with flag
README 'Status' lists 'Respect robots.txt with option --obey-robots', and the example commands pass that flag by hand, so without it the browser also fetches pages a site asked crawlers to leave alone. Automated collection can break a site's terms of use, and the rules differ by country.
AI review
- Infonot a full browser engine
README 'Why Lightpanda?': 'No graphical rendering engine', and '--dump png > page.png' is described as 'a text-only rendering of the page', so pages that depend on layout or rendering may behave differently from Chrome.
AI review
- Infovendor measured benchmarks
The claim '16x lighter and 9x faster than Chromium' comes from the project's own benchmark table, run against its own demo repository on one AWS instance.
AI review
- Infocopyleft license and cla
The license is AGPL-3.0 and the repository has CLA.md and LICENSING.md at the top level, with CONTRIBUTING saying 'You must sign our CLA during the pull request process.' Running a changed version as a public network service means publishing your changes.
AI review
Evidence is shown in its original language.
What Radar could not check
- Whether the sites you care about work, since it is a new engine and not a Chromium fork
- What the telemetry sends and how to see it
- The speed and memory numbers on your own pages and machine
- How much disk and memory a running instance really uses
- What the optional agent mode costs in model calls