Header Gradient Blobs

Welcome to Ladybird,
a truly independent
web browser.

We are building a brand-new browser from scratch, backed by a non-profit.

Get Involved

About Ladybird

Ladybird is a brand-new browser & web engine. Driven by a web standards first approach, Ladybird aims to render the modern web with good performance, stability and security.

From its humble beginnings as an HTML viewer for the SerenityOS hobby operating system project, Ladybird has since grown into a cross-platform browser supporting Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems.

Ladybird is currently in heavy development. We are targeting a first Alpha release for early adopters in 2026.

What makes Ladybird unique

star symbol

Truly independent

No code from other browsers. We're building a new engine, based on web standards.

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Singular focus

We are focused on one thing: the web browser.

crossed out money symbol

No monetization

No "default search deals", crypto tokens, or other forms of user monetization, ever.

News & Announcements

Announcement
mike-shaver

Mike Shaver joins the Ladybird Board

Bringing in a browser industry veteran to raise the bar.
Announcement
boardroom

Welcoming Tim Flynn to the Ladybird Board

Ensuring that the OSS community has a seat at the table.
Announcement
plant

Announcing the Ladybird Browser Initiative

Launching our 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Thoughts
katica

Why we need Ladybird

Co-founder Chris Wanstrath shares his thoughts.
Announcement
fork

Ladybird forks from SerenityOS

Announcing the split, and what it means for both projects.

Get Involved

Ladybird is currently in heavy development, and there's work to be done in all areas of the browser.

We're welcoming new developers every week. The main community hub is our Discord server.

All the code is hosted on GitHub. Clone it, build it, and join our Discord if you want to collaborate on it! We're looking forward to seeing you there.

Join Discord Get the code

Sponsors

Platinum
FUTO
Shopify
Gold
Ahrefs
Guillermo Rauch
Silver
37signals
Cling
WorkOS
Packet Clearing House
Null Games
Playbit
ohne-makler.net
Bronze
JetBrains
Tuple
Bastian Müller
Copper
Optimising.com.au
Guillaume Knispel
Mark Goetz
Broadband Map
Jonathan Lahijani

Frequently Asked Questions

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When is it coming?
We are targeting Summer 2026 for a first Alpha version on Linux and macOS. This will be aimed at developers and early adopters.
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How many people are working on the browser today?
We currently have 6 paid full-time engineers working on Ladybird. There is also a large community of volunteer contributors.
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What's the hiring plan?
We have 1 new full-time engineer starting soon. Going forward, we would like to grow the team at a reasonable pace. Building the right team is more important than building it quickly.

We will strive to maintain 18 months of runway at all times.
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What does "No code from other browsers" really mean?
The focus of the Ladybird project is to build a new browser engine from the ground up. We don't use code from Blink, WebKit, Gecko, or any other browser engine.

For historical reasons, the browser uses various libraries from the SerenityOS project, which has a strong culture of writing everything from scratch. Now that Ladybird has forked from SerenityOS, it is no longer bound by this culture, and we will be making use of 3rd party libraries for common functionality (e.g image/audio/video formats, encryption, graphics, etc.)

We are already using some of the same 3rd party libraries that other browsers use, but we will never adopt another browser engine instead of building our own.
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Will Ladybird work on Windows?
We don't have anyone actively working on Windows support, and there are considerable changes required to make it work well outside a Unix-like environment.

We would like to do Windows eventually, but it's not a priority at the moment.
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Will Ladybird work on mobile devices?
We don't have anyone actively working on an Android or iOS port. More effort will be put into mobile once we have the desktop versions in a good state.

While there is the start of an Android port in the project repository, mobile is not a priority at the moment.
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What are the sponsor tiers?

Sponsorships run for one year, then you are welcome to renew.

Sponsors will have their logos/names displayed on our website, and will be thanked in updates / on social media.

Please contact us if you are interested in sponsorship.
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How can you be "independent" if you have sponsors?
All sponsorships are in the form of unrestricted donations. Board seats and other forms of influence are not for sale.
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Why build a new browser in C++ when safer and more modern languages are available?
Ladybird started as a component of the SerenityOS hobby project, which only allows C++. The choice of language was not so much a technical decision, but more one of personal convenience. Andreas was most comfortable with C++ when creating SerenityOS, and now we have almost half a million lines of modern C++ to maintain.

However, now that Ladybird has forked and become its own independent project, all constraints previously imposed by SerenityOS are no longer in effect.

We have evaluated a number of alternatives, and will begin incremental adoption of Swift as a successor language, once Swift version 6 is released. (More background.)