# Comparison of lightweight web browsers

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.
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, whereas xombrero can be driven with vi-like keyboard commands.
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.

## Overview

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

## Operating system support

| Browser | BSD | Haiku | Linux | macOS | OpenIndiana | OS/2 | QNX | RISC OS | Windows |
| Arora | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Dillo | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Cygwin |
| ELinks | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Dropped | ? |
| Falkon (QupZilla) | Dropped | Yes | Yes | Dropped | No | Dropped | No | No | Dropped |
| K-Meleon | Wine | No | Wine | Wine | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Links | Unofficial | No | Yes | Unofficial | ? | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Lynx | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| NetSurf | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | ? | Yes | Yes |
| Otter Browser | Yes | Unofficial | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| QtWeb | Yes | Unofficial | Yes | Yes | Unofficial | No | No | No | Yes |
| qutebrowser | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | Yes |
| rekonq | Yes | No | Yes | No | Unofficial | No | No | No | Inactive |
| surf | Yes | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | No | No |
| uzbl | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| w3m | Unofficial | Unofficial | Yes | Unofficial | Unofficial | Inactive | No | No | Cygwin |
| WebPositive | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| xombrero | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |

### Notes

* 1 2 Must be built from source code; requires a compatible version of Qt.
* ↑ rekonq v1.1 for Windows was published in September 2012. As of June 2014, it is the only published version for Windows.

## 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 formats | Image formats | Advanced | Advanced | Test scores | Test scores | Plug-in APIs | Plug-in APIs |
| Browser | GIF, JPEG, PNG | WebP | JavaScript | Frames | Acid3 | HTML5test | Netscape | Pepper |
| Arora | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | 100/100 | 359/550 | No | No |
| Dillo | Yes | No | No | Partial | — | — | No | No |
| ELinks | No | No | Partial | Partial | — | — | No | No |
| Falkon (QupZilla) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 100/100 | 497/550 | Partial | Partial |
| K-Meleon | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | 100/100 | 416/555 | Partial | No |
| Links | Yes | Yes | No | Partial | — | — | No | No |
| Lynx | No | No | No | Partial | — | — | No | No |
| NetSurf | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | — | — | No | No |
| Otter Browser | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 100/100 | 370/550 | Yes | No |
| QtWeb | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | 100/100 | 234/550 | No | No |
| qutebrowser | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 99/100 | 521/550 | No | No |
| rekonq | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | 100/100 | 385/555 | No | Partial |
| surf | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 100/100 | 385/500 | Yes | ? |
| uzbl | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 98/100 | 461/500 | Yes | ? |
| w3m | Yes | No | No | Yes | — | — | No | No |
| WebPositive | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | 98/100 | 358/500 | No | No |
| xombrero | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | 100/100 | 385/500 | Yes | ? |

### Notes

* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Some tests take too much time to complete.
* 1 2 3 NPAPI is ported to QtWebKit, but is not implemented in this browser.
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 The test requires JavaScript, which is not sufficiently supported by this browser.
* ↑ ELinks implements Mozilla's SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine.
* ↑ Only Links 2 supports graphics.
* ↑ JavaScript support was removed in 2007 (in release 2.1pre29).
* ↑ The final state does not match the reference rendering.
* 1 2 WebP is supported via the WebKitGTK browser engine.