Comparison of lightweight web browsers

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A lightweight web browser is a web browser that sacrifices some of the features of a mainstream web browser in order to reduce the consumption of system resources, and especially to minimize the memory footprint. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

The tables below compare notable lightweight web browsers. Several of them use a common layout engine, but each has a unique combination of features and a potential niche. The minimal user interface in surf, for example, does not have tabs, [4] whereas xombrero can be driven with vi-like keyboard commands. [5]

Four of the browsers compared—Lynx, w3m, Links, and ELinks—are designed for text mode, and can function in a terminal emulator. Eww is limited to working within Emacs. Links 2 has both a text-based user interface and a graphical user interface. w3m is, in addition to being a web browser, also a terminal pager. [6]

Overview

Browser Developers Status Engine Programming languages License Latest release
VersionDate
Arora Benjamin C. Meyer et al. [7] Discontinued QtWebKit [8] C++ GPL-2.0-or-later 0.11.0 [9]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2010-09-27
Dillo Jorge Arellano Cid et al.ActiveDillo C, C++ GPL-3.0-or-later 3.2.0 [10]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2025-01-18
ELinks Petr Baudiš, Jonas Fonseca, et al.ActiveLinks C, C++ GPL-2.0-only 0.17.1.1 [11]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2024-10-05
Eww Lars Magne IngebrigtsenActive GNU Emacs libraries Emacs Lisp GPL-3.0-or-later
Falkon (QupZilla)David RoscaActive QtWebKit / Qt WebEngine C++ GPL-3.0-or-later 24.05.2 [12]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2024-07-04
hv3 Dan Kennedy & teamDiscontinued Tkhtml Tcl GPL
K-Meleon Christophe Thibault et al.Active Gecko / Goanna (fork) C++ GPL 76.4.7 [13]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2023-04-07
Links Mikuláš Patočka, Twibright Labs, et al.ActiveLinks C GPL-2.0-or-later 2.30 [14]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2024-07-27
Lynx Lou Montulli, Thomas Dickey, et al.Active libwww derivative C (ISO C) GPL-2.0-only 2.9.2 [15]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2024-05-31
NetSurf John-Mark Bell, Michael Drake, et al. [16] ActiveNetSurf C (ANSI C) GPL-2.0-only 3.11 [17]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2023-12-28
Otter Browser Michał Dutkiewicz [18] Active QtWebKit / Qt WebEngine C++ GPL-3.0-or-later 1.0.03 [19]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2022-02-22
QtWeb LogicWare; LSoft Technologies [20] Unmaintained QtWebKit C++ GPL-2.0-or-later 3.8.5 [21]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2013-09-09
qutebrowser Florian Bruhin et al.Active [22] QtWebKit / Qt WebEngine [23] Python3 GPL-3.0-or-later 3.4.0 [24]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2024-12-14
rekonqAndrea Diamantini et al.Discontinued QtWebKit [8] C++ GPLv3 2.4.2 [25]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2014-01-12
surf Christoph Lohmann et al.Active WebKitGTK C MIT 2.1 [26]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2021-05-08
uzbl Dieter Plaetinck et al.Discontinued WebKitGTK C, Python GPL-3.0-only 0.9.1 [27]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2016-10-27
w3m Akinori Ito et al.Unmaintainedw3m C MIT 0.5.3 [28]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2011-01-15
WebPositive Andrea Anzani, Ryan Leavengood, et al.Active HaikuWebkit C++ MIT 1.3-alpha [29]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2021-08-01
xombrero Marco Peerboom et al.Discontinued WebKitGTK C, JavaScript ISC 1.6.4 [30]   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg 2015-02-17

Operating system support

Browser BSD Haiku Linux macOS OpenIndiana OS/2 QNX RISC OS Windows Android
Arora YesYesYesYesYes [31] YesNoNoYes
Dillo YesNoYesYesYes [32] NoNoYes [32] Cygwin [32] [33]
ELinks Yes [34]  ?Yes [34] Yes [34] Yes [34] Yes [34] No [34] Dropped [34]  ?
Falkon (QupZilla)Dropped [35] [36] Yes [35] [36] Yes [35] [36] Dropped [37] NoDropped [35] [36] NoNoDropped [36]
K-Meleon Wine No Wine [38] Wine NoNoNoNoYes
Links UnofficialNoYesUnofficial ?YesNoNoYes
Lynx YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes [39] [40] Yes
NetSurf Yes [41] Yes [42] Yes [41] Yes [41] Yes [41] No ?Yes [43] Yes [44]
Otter Browser Yes [45] Unofficial [46] Yes [45] Yes [45] NoNoNoNoYes
QtWeb YesUnofficial [47] YesYesUnofficial [i] NoNoNoYes
qutebrowser Yes ?YesYes ? ? ? ?Yes
rekonqYesNoYesNoUnofficial [i] NoNoNoInactive [ii]
surf YesNoYes ? ? ? ?NoNo
uzbl  ? ?YesYes ? ? ? ? ?
w3m UnofficialUnofficialYesUnofficialUnofficialInactiveNoNo Cygwin
WebPositive NoYesNoNoNoNoNoNoNo
xombrero YesNoYesYesYesNoNoNoYes
Notes
  1. 1 2 Must be built from source code; requires a compatible version of Qt.
  2. ↑ rekonq v1.1 for Windows was published in September 2012. As of June 2014, it is the only published version for Windows. [48]

Features

Test scores reflect the version of the browser engine in use. Generally, a lower score indicates an older version of the browser engine.

Image formatsAdvancedTest scoresPlug-in APIs
Browser GIF, JPEG, PNG WebP JavaScript Frames Acid3 HTML5test Netscape Pepper
Arora YesNoYesYes 100/100 [i] 359/550 [49] No [ii] No
Dillo YesNoNoPartial— [iii] — [iii] NoNo
ELinks NoNoPartial [iv] Partial— [iii] — [iii] NoNo
Falkon (QupZilla)YesYesYesYes 100/100 [i] 497/550 [51] PartialPartial
K-Meleon YesNoYesYes 100/100 [i] 416/555 [52] Partial [53] No
Links Yes [v] YesNo [vi] Partial— [iii] — [iii] NoNo
Lynx NoNoNoPartial— [iii] — [iii] NoNo
NetSurf Yes [55] YesPartial [56] Yes— [iii] — [iii] No [57] No
Otter Browser YesYesYesYes 100/100 370/550 [58] YesNo
QtWeb YesNoYesYes 100/100 [i] [vii] 234/550 [59] No [ii] No
qutebrowser YesYesYesYes99/100[ citation needed ]521/550NoNo
rekonqYesNoYesYes 100/100 [i] 385/555 [60] No [ii] Partial [61]
surf YesYes [viii] YesYes 100/100 [i] 385/500 [63] Yes ?
uzbl YesYesYesYes 98/100 461/500 Yes ?
w3m Yes [64] NoNo [65] Yes— [iii] — [iii] NoNo
WebPositive YesNoYesYes 98/100 [i] 358/500 [66] NoNo
xombrero YesYes [viii] YesYes 100/100 385/500 [67] Yes ?
Notes
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Some tests take too much time to complete.
  2. 1 2 3 NPAPI is ported to QtWebKit, but is not implemented in this browser.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 The test requires JavaScript, which is not sufficiently supported by this browser.
  4. ↑ ELinks implements Mozilla's SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine. [50]
  5. ↑ Only Links 2 supports graphics.
  6. ↑ JavaScript support was removed in 2007 (in release 2.1pre29). [54]
  7. ↑ The final state does not match the reference rendering.
  8. 1 2 WebP is supported via the WebKitGTK browser engine. [62]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konqueror</span> Web browser and file manager

Konqueror is a free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides web access and file-viewer functionality for file systems. It forms a core part of the KDE Software Compilation. Developed by volunteers, Konqueror can run on most Unix-like operating systems. The KDE community licenses and distributes Konqueror under GNU GPL-2.0-or-later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">K-Meleon</span> Lightweight web browser for Microsoft Windows

K-Meleon is a free and open-source, lightweight web browser for Microsoft Windows. It uses the native Windows API to create its user interface. Early versions of K-Meleon rendered web pages with Gecko, Mozilla's browser layout engine, which Mozilla's browser Firefox and its email client Thunderbird also use. K-Meleon became a popular Windows browser and was available as an optional default browser in Europe via BrowserChoice.eu. K-Meleon continued to use Gecko for several years after Mozilla deprecated embedding it. Current versions of K-Meleon use the Goanna layout engine, a fork of Gecko created for the browser Pale Moon.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">KHTML</span> Open source browser engine

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camino (web browser)</span> Discontinued open-source web browser

Camino is a discontinued free, open source, GUI-based Web browser based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine and specifically designed for the OS X operating system. In place of an XUL-based user interface used by most Mozilla-based applications, Camino used Mac-native Cocoa APIs. On May 30, 2013, the Camino Project announced that the browser is no longer being developed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNOME Web</span> Free and open-source web browser for Unix-like systems

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">NetSurf</span> Open source web browser

NetSurf is an open-source web browser which uses its own layout engine. Its design goal is to be lightweight and portable. NetSurf provides features including tabbed browsing, bookmarks, and page thumbnailing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LXDE</span> Lightweight desktop environment for Linux and BSD

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midori (web browser)</span> Free and open-source web browser

Midori is a free and open-source web browser. In 2019, the Midori project was acquired by the Astian Foundation. After the acquisition, the project became a derivative of the Firefox browser.

qutebrowser is a free, open-source web browser that is keyboard-focused and minimal in design. Written in Python and using PyQt, qutebrowser aims to offer a lightweight browser that can be primarily operated with keyboard commands inspired by Vim-style keybindings.

References

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  5. ↑ Peereboom, Marco; Hill, David; et al. (1 March 2012). "xombrero wiki § Quick-Start Tutorial". Conformal Systems. Archived from the original on 28 September 2014. Retrieved 30 August 2014.
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  7. ↑ Meyer, Benjamin (2 October 2009). "Arora 0.10.0!". Arora Development. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  8. 1 2 Poulain, Benjamin; et al. (10 May 2010). "Applications Using QtWebKit". Qt Wiki. Qt Project Hosting. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 21 June 2014.
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  13. ↑ "K-Meleon 76.4.7 on Goanna 3.5.0". 7 April 2023.
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  34. 1 2 3 4 "Qupzilla - Lightweight multiplatform browser: Download". Qupzilla.com. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  35. 1 2 3 4 5 "Download - Falkon". falkon.org. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
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  38. ↑ "Nettle". nettle.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  39. ↑ "New Telnet Client and Web Browser for RISC OS". My RISC OS. 2 September 2001. Archived from the original on 22 May 2008. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  40. 1 2 3 4 "NetSurf | GTK Downloads". netsurf-browser.org. Retrieved 23 March 2021.
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  44. 1 2 3 "OtterBrowser/otter-browser". GitHub. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
  45. ↑ "Otter browser: new recipe by miqlas · Pull Request #1006 · haikuports/haikuports". GitHub. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
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  50. ↑ "HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) QupZilla/2.1.99 Safari/537.36". HTML5test.com. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
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  52. ↑ "ThirdPartyPlugins". kmeleonbrowser.org. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  53. ↑ "Links user documentation" . Retrieved 14 March 2022.
  54. ↑ Auza, Jun (27 June 2009). "5 Free and Open Source Web Browsers That You May Have Never Heard Of" . Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  55. ↑ "User Information".
  56. ↑ "0001896: NPAPI plugin support". NetSurf Bug Report System. 22 October 2010. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  57. ↑ "HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/602.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Otter/0.9.91". HTML5test.com. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
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  61. ↑ Jáquez, Víctor (31 December 2013). "Boosting WebKitGTK+ compilation for armhf with icecream". Herostratus’ legacy. Igalia . Retrieved 29 July 2014.
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