# Lightpanda vs crawler-buddy

> Two self-hosted projects, compared on the numbers selfhost.directory tracks live: score, popularity, release cadence and setup effort.

| | Lightpanda | crawler-buddy |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79/100 ✓ | 43/100 |
| Rank in category | #1 of 11 in Browser Automation | #14 of 16 in Web Scraping |
| GitHub stars | 37 102 ✓ | 258 |
| Stars, last 30 days | +301 | — |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 11 ✓ | 0 |
| Latest release | 1.0.2 · 22 Oct 2026 | — |
| Setup | Easy ✓ | Moderate |
| Official Docker image | Yes | Yes |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Main language | Zig | HTML |

## Which one should you pick?

Lightpanda scores 79/100 against 43/100 for crawler-buddy, so it is the safer default.

Lightpanda ships more often: 11 stable releases in the past year, against 0 for crawler-buddy.

If you want the quickest setup, Lightpanda is easier to run; crawler-buddy needs more configuration.

Lightpanda is growing faster right now (+301 stars in 30 days).

## Details

- [Lightpanda](https://selfhost.directory/project/browser) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/browser.md)
- [crawler-buddy](https://selfhost.directory/project/crawler-buddy) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/crawler-buddy.md)

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Source: https://selfhost.directory/compare/browser-vs-crawler-buddy