# Lightpanda vs firecrawl

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

| | Lightpanda | firecrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 79/100 | 91/100 ✓ |
| Rank in category | #1 of 11 in Browser Automation | #1 of 16 in Web Scraping |
| GitHub stars | 37 085 | 196 274 ✓ |
| Stars, last 30 days | +284 | +12 381 ✓ |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 11 ✓ | 9 |
| Latest release | 1.0.2 · 22 Oct 2026 ✓ | apps/go-sdk/v1.15.0 · 8 Sept 2026 |
| Setup | Easy ✓ | Advanced |
| Official Docker image | Yes | Yes |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Main language | Zig | Typescript |

## Which one should you pick?

firecrawl scores 91/100 against 79/100 for Lightpanda, so it is the safer default.

Lightpanda ships more often: 11 stable releases in the past year, against 9 for firecrawl.

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

firecrawl is growing faster right now (+12 381 stars in 30 days).

## Details

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

---
Source: https://selfhost.directory/compare/browser-vs-firecrawl