browser
by lightpanda-io
Lightpanda is a lightweight headless web browser, written from scratch in Zig, that has no visible window and is controlled by code. It is meant for AI agents, web scraping and browser automation, and works with tools such as Puppeteer and Playwright.
- Stars
- 41k
- Licence
- AGPL-3.0
- Runs on
- Your computer
- Setup
- Moderate
- Language
- Zig
- Age
- 1364 days
What you can do with it
- Fetch a web page and save it as HTML, Markdown or structured data from the command line
- Start a local server that Puppeteer or Playwright scripts connect to, in place of headless Chrome
- Use the built-in agent mode to direct the browser in plain English and save the steps as a replayable script
Make money with it
A freelancer could offer web data extraction or page monitoring services to small businesses, running the jobs cheaply on a small server.
An idea, not financial advice. Check the licence before charging for anything built on it.
Ways a business could use it
- Run large web data collection jobs, such as price or listing checks, on cheaper servers because it uses far less memory than headless Chrome
- Power automated website checks or AI agent workflows for clients without paying for hosted browser services
Can you use it commercially?
Free to use. Anything you distribute that includes it must be open-sourced under the same licence. Running it as an online service also counts, so a hosted version must offer its source.
Not legal advice. Read the project's licence file before building a product on it.
Getting it running
Install with Homebrew, download a binary for Linux or macOS, or run the official Docker image; Windows users need WSL2.
Follow the official instructions in the project README.
Things to check
- Licensed under AGPL-3.0, which may restrict use in closed-source commercial products or hosted services
- Not a full browser, so some complex websites may not work correctly
- Only nightly builds are offered, so behaviour may change without notice
- No native Windows build; WSL2 is required
- Scraping can breach some websites' terms of service
Who's talking about it
Checked 03 Nov 2026. Summary drafted by AI from the project's README.
