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Lightpanda

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Zig-based headless browser engine optimized for AI agent workloads. 11x faster, 9x less memory than Chrome headless. 140 concurrent instances vs 15 for Chrome on the same hardware.

Connector
Atomic
Complexity
browserweb

71/100

Trust

22K+

Stars

3

Evidence

Videos

Reviews, tutorials, and comparisons from the community.

Trending Open-Source Github Projects : Bitnet.cpp, OpenRAG, Promptfoo, Coolify, Lightpanda #239

ManuAGI - AutoGPT Tutorials·2026-03-14

Introducing Lightpanda: the first browser built for machines

Lightpanda·2025-06-10

Hands-on Introduction to lightpanda | Rawkode Live

Rawkode Academy·2025-04-24

Repo health

71/100

11h ago

Last push

85

Open issues

835

Forks

31

Contributors

Editorial verdict

Best infrastructure pick for teams running browser automation at scale who need to reduce costs. Drop-in CDP replacement for Chrome headless in pipelines. Still beta — not a user-facing agent tool.

Source

GitHub: lightpanda-io/browser

Public evidence

strong2025-12
HN: Lightpanda — 319 points, deep technical engagement

Three HN threads with sustained deep technical engagement. Combined 700+ points and 467 comments signal genuine developer interest in high-performance headless browser infrastructure.

319 HN points + 212 pts + 199 pts (three 150+ threads, combined 700+ pts, 467 comments)HN community
moderateSelf-reported2026-03
gomcp: Lightpanda MCP server — 63 stars

Lightpanda now has an MCP server (gomcp), addressing the previous gap. Enables integration with MCP-compatible AI agent workflows.

63 stars on GitHubLightpanda team

How does this compare?

See side-by-side metrics against other skills in the same category.

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Where it wins

11x faster, 9x less memory vs Chrome headless — independently benchmarked

140 concurrent instances vs 15 for Chrome on same hardware

CDP-compatible — drop-in replacement for existing Chrome headless pipelines

Three HN threads with deep technical engagement (combined 700+ pts, 467 comments)

Now has MCP server (gomcp, 63 stars)

Where to be skeptical

Still beta (v0.2.x) — ~5% site breakage reported

AGPL-3.0 license limits commercial use

Not a complete browser — won't work for all websites

Infrastructure layer, not a user-facing agent tool

Ranking in categories

Web Browsing / Browser Automation

#07of 9

High-performance headless browser engine for AI agent infrastructure

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Raw GitHub source

GitHub README peek

Constrained peek so you can sanity-check the source material without leaving the site.

<p align="center"> <a href="https://lightpanda.io"><img src="https://cdn.lightpanda.io/assets/images/logo/lpd-logo.png" alt="Logo" height=170></a> </p> <h1 align="center">Lightpanda Browser</h1> <p align="center"> <strong>The headless browser built from scratch for AI agents and automation.</strong><br> Not a Chromium fork. Not a WebKit patch. A new browser, written in Zig. </p> </div> <div align="center"> </div> <div align="center">

<img width="350px" src="https://cdn.lightpanda.io/assets/images/github/execution-time.svg">   <img width="350px" src="https://cdn.lightpanda.io/assets/images/github/memory-frame.svg">

</div>

Puppeteer requesting 100 pages from a local website on a AWS EC2 m5.large instance. See benchmark details.

Lightpanda is the open-source browser made for headless usage:

  • Javascript execution
  • Support of Web APIs (partial, WIP)
  • Compatible with Playwright1, Puppeteer, chromedp through CDP

Fast web automation for AI agents, LLM training, scraping and testing:

  • Ultra-low memory footprint (9x less than Chrome)
  • Exceptionally fast execution (11x faster than Chrome)
  • Instant startup

Quick start

Install

Install from the nightly builds

You can download the last binary from the nightly builds for Linux x86_64 and MacOS aarch64.

For Linux

curl -L -o lightpanda https://github.com/lightpanda-io/browser/releases/download/nightly/lightpanda-x86_64-linux && \
chmod a+x ./lightpanda

For MacOS

curl -L -o lightpanda https://github.com/lightpanda-io/browser/releases/download/nightly/lightpanda-aarch64-macos && \
chmod a+x ./lightpanda

For Windows + WSL2

The Lightpanda browser is compatible to run on windows inside WSL. Follow the Linux instruction for installation from a WSL terminal. It is recommended to install clients like Puppeteer on the Windows host.

Install from Docker

Lightpanda provides official Docker images for both Linux amd64 and arm64 architectures. The following command fetches the Docker image and starts a new container exposing Lightpanda's CDP server on port 9222.

docker run -d --name lightpanda -p 9222:9222 lightpanda/browser:nightly
Dump a URL
./lightpanda fetch --obey_robots --log_format pretty  --log_level info https://demo-browser.lightpanda.io/campfire-commerce/

INFO  telemetry : telemetry status . . . . . . . . . . . . .  [+0ms]
      disabled = false

INFO  page : navigate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [+6ms]
      url = https://demo-browser.lightpanda.io/campfire-commerce/
      method = GET
      reason = address_bar
      body = false
      req_id = 1

INFO  browser : executing script . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  [+118ms]
      src = https://demo-browser.lightpanda.io/campfire-commerce/script.js
      kind = javascript
      cacheable = true

INFO  http : request complete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [+140ms]
      source = xhr
      url = https://demo-browser.lightpanda.io/campfire-commerce/json/product.json
      status = 200
      len = 4770

INFO  http : request complete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [+141ms]
      source = fetch
      url = https://demo-browser.lightpanda.io/campfire-commerce/json/reviews.json
      status = 200
      len = 1615
<!DOCTYPE html>
Start a CDP server
./lightpanda serve --obey_robots --log_format pretty  --log_level info --host 127.0.0.1 --port 9222

INFO  telemetry : telemetry status . . . . . . . . . . . . .  [+0ms]
      disabled = false

INFO  app : server running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  [+0ms]
      address = 127.0.0.1:9222

Once the CDP server started, you can run a Puppeteer script by configuring the browserWSEndpoint.

'use strict'

import puppeteer from 'puppeteer-core';

// use browserWSEndpoint to pass the Lightpanda's CDP server address.
const browser = await puppeteer.connect({
  browserWSEndpoint: "ws://127.0.0.1:9222",
});

// The rest of your script remains the same.
const context = await browser.createBrowserContext();

Footnotes

  1. Playwright support disclaimer: Due to the nature of Playwright, a script that works with the current version of the browser may not function correctly with a future version. Playwright uses an intermediate JavaScript layer that selects an execution strategy based on the browser's available features. If Lightpanda adds a new Web API, Playwright may choose to execute different code for the same script. This new code path could attempt to use features that are not yet implemented. Lightpanda makes an effort to add compatibility tests, but we can't cover all scenarios. If you encounter an issue, please create a GitHub issue and include the last known working version of the script. ↩

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