Ladybird (web browser)

Ladybird is an open-source web browser developed by the Ladybird Browser Initiative, a nonprofit organization focused on development of the browser. It is licensed under the BSD 2-Clause License. An alpha release is planned in 2026, beta release is expected in 2027, and a stable release for general public in 2028. Originally a component of SerenityOS, it is now being developed as a standalone project. The initiative is funded entirely through donations, with Cloudflare, FUTO, Shopify, and 37signals among its sponsors.

Features

Ladybird uses a new browser engine called LibWeb that is being created from scratch by the development team. Unlike SerenityOS, it will also use other open source libraries for development. An ad blocking feature is planned. Unlike most new web browsers, Ladybird does not rely on Chromium or Firefox and uses its own rendering engine and JavaScript engine.

History

The project was initially developed by the SerenityOS community using its internal software libraries implementing specific features. Ladybird was spun off into a separate project in September 2022 by Andreas Kling, the founder and a former maintainer of the SerenityOS project.
On June 30, 2024, Kling announced that he would be stepping back from the SerenityOS project to focus solely on building the Ladybird browser. In July 2024 the Ladybird Browser Initiative announced that it was being funded by Chris Wanstrath, the co-founder of GitHub. Ladybird began receiving sponsorships to fund its development including from large companies such as Shopify and Proton VPN.
As of March 2025, it ranked fourth highest on the Web Platform Tests, a suite of tests used by browser developers, below Chrome, Safari and Firefox. It also had the second most conformant JavaScript engine after Firefox's SpiderMonkey.