Sandbox profile · Hosted platform

Lightpanda

Answer in brief

A headless browser written from scratch in Zig (AGPL-3.0) with no graphical rendering, offered as a CDP endpoint on Lightpanda Cloud with a free 10-hour tier. A fast, frugal engine for machine browsing rather than a visual sandbox; the cloud tier is young and lightly documented.

By the Agent Sandboxes editors · Updated November 9, 2026

Overview

Lightpanda is a headless browser built from scratch in Zig by the French company of the same name; it is not a Chromium fork and does not render graphics. It exposes CDP and WebDriver BiDi so Puppeteer, Playwright and chromedp scripts work against it, plus a built-in MCP server and agent in the local build. The README claims it is 16x lighter and 9x faster than headless Chrome on a 933-page benchmark. Version 1.0 (2 October 2026) took it out of beta with 1.74 million passing Web Platform Tests subtests, about 80% of Chrome's count.

Lightpanda Cloud serves the same engine over wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws or the US-west equivalent; append browser=chrome for a debugging Chrome that is not meant for production. Plans are Explorer (free, 10 hours a month) and Builder ($19 a month for 300 hours), counted by the second, with a 15-minute cap on each CDP connection. The docs do not describe how cloud sessions are isolated, and there is no profile or login persistence. The browser is AGPL-3.0, so self-hosting is free but copyleft.

Notable

Lightpanda 1.0 released 2 October 2026 after two years and 10,000 commits (company blog)
Pre-seed round led by ISAI with Kima, Factorial Capital and Prototype Capital, announced 10 June 2025 (amount undisclosed)
GitHub repository has 41.7k stars under AGPL-3.0

Lightpanda specifications

Attribute	Details
Isolation	Not documented for Lightpanda Cloud; locally Lightpanda runs as a single headless browser process or Docker container
Deployment	Hosted platform · Self-hostable
Open source	Yes (AGPL-3.0)
SDKs and interfaces	CLI, REST API, MCP server
Cold start (vendor claim)	Not documented
Max session length	A CDP connection to the cloud closes after 15 minutes on every plan; MCP sessions close after 5 minutes without a request
Persistence	None documented; the cloud console lists recent sessions and logs
GPU	No — the engine has no graphical rendering
Networking	Managed proxy pool with country selection on the cloud, or bring your own proxy; local builds can block private networks and CIDRs
Pricing	Explorer $0: 10 browser hours per month, 5 concurrent sessions. Builder $19/month: 300 hours then $0.08 per hour, 30 concurrent sessions. Enterprise: custom volume pricing, on-premise or private cloud. Usage counted by the second
Free tier	Explorer plan: 10 browser hours per month, 5 concurrent sessions; the browser is free to self-host
Compliance	Not documented
Regions	euwest (west Europe) and uswest (west US) cloud endpoints

Facts from Lightpanda’s public documentation, verified November 9, 2026. Performance numbers are vendor claims.

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

You want a lightweight engine for crawling and scraping at volume
You need a free tier with real browser hours
You want to self-host an open-source browser without Chromium
You are running CDP scripts and only need a WebSocket endpoint

Trade-offs

No graphical rendering, so screenshots and visual computer-use are out of scope
Web platform coverage is about 80% of Chrome by WPT subtests, so some sites will break
Cloud connections are capped at 15 minutes and isolation is not documented
AGPL-3.0 licence for self-hosting

Good fit for: High-volume page fetching and crawling where memory and speed matter more than pixel-accurate rendering.

How Lightpanda compares

Sandbox	Isolation	Open source	Self-host / BYOC	Cold start (vendor)	Max session	Snapshots / pause	GPU	SDKs
Lightpanda	Not documented	Yes	Yes / No	Not documented	15 min per connection	No / No	No	CLI, REST API, MCP server
Browserless	Not documented	Yes	Yes / No	Not documented	2 min to 60 min by plan	No / No	Yes	JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, CLI, REST API, MCP server
Steel	Isolated Chromium session	Yes	Yes / No	Not documented	15 min / 1 h / 24 h	No / No	No	Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, Rust, CLI, REST API, MCP server
Cloudflare Browser Run	Not documented	No	No / No	Warm pool (claim)	60 s idle, 20 min keep_alive	No / No	No	JavaScript/TypeScript, REST API, MCP server
Browserbase	Isolated Chromium session	No	No / No	<2 s (claim)	6 h (15 min Free)	No / No	No	Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, REST API, MCP server
Notte	Isolated browser instance	Yes	No / No	Not documented	15 min to 5 h by plan	No / No	No	Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, CLI, REST API, MCP server

See all Lightpanda alternatives →

Frequently asked questions

What is Lightpanda?

How does Lightpanda isolate code?

Lightpanda documents its isolation as: Not documented for Lightpanda Cloud; locally Lightpanda runs as a single headless browser process or Docker container.

Is Lightpanda open source?

Yes (AGPL-3.0). It can be self-hosted.

How much does Lightpanda cost?

Explorer $0: 10 browser hours per month, 5 concurrent sessions. Builder $19/month: 300 hours then $0.08 per hour, 30 concurrent sessions. Enterprise: custom volume pricing, on-premise or private cloud. Usage counted by the second Check the official pricing page for current rates.

What are the alternatives to Lightpanda?

Common alternatives include Browserless, Steel, Cloudflare Browser Run, Browserbase, Notte. See Lightpanda alternatives for a full comparison.

Sources

Cite this page

Agent Sandboxes. (2026). Lightpanda. agentsandboxes.org. Last reviewed November 9, 2026. https://agentsandboxes.org/sandboxes/lightpanda/

Found an error or a missing sandbox? Submit a correction — every entry links to the sources it relies on.