Comparison of browser engines explained

This article compares browser engines, especially actively-developed ones.

Some of these engines have shared origins. For example, the WebKit engine was created by forking the KHTML engine in 2001.^[1] Then, in 2013, a modified version of WebKit was officially forked as the Blink engine.^[2]

General information

Engine	Status	Steward	License	Embedded in
WebKit	Active	Apple		Safari browser, plus all browsers for iOS;^[3] GNOME Web, Konqueror, Orion
Blink	Active	Google		Google Chrome and all other Chromium-based browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Samsung Internet, and Opera^[4]
Gecko	Active	Mozilla		Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client
Goanna	Active	M. C. Straver^[5]		Pale Moon, Basilisk, and K-Meleon browsers
Trident	Maintained	Microsoft		Internet Explorer browser
EdgeHTML	Maintained <	-- still maintained for UWP apps, per https://redmondmag.com/articles/2018/12/10/edgehtml-continues.aspx -->	Microsoft		some UWP apps;^[6] formerly in the Edge browser^[7]
Presto	Maintained	Opera		server-side for low-end phones; formerly in the Opera browser
Flow^[8]	Maintained	Ekioh^[9]		Flow browser^[10]
	Servo	Maintained<	--as noted in the line above, don't change this to Active until there's sufficient evidence that Servo's capabilities are on par with the mainstream engines-->	Linux Foundation		experimental browsers^[11] ^[12]
NetSurf	Maintained	hobbyists^[13]		NetSurf browser^[14]
LibWeb	Maintained	Ladybird Browser Initiative^[15]		Ladybird browser^[16]
KHTML^[17]	Discontinued	KDE		formerly in the Konqueror browser^[18]

Support

These tables summarize what actively-developed engines support.

Operating systems

The operating systems that engines can run on without emulation.

Notes

Image formats

Engine	JPEG	JPEG 2000	JPEG XL	GIF	BMP	PNG	APNG	SVG	WebP	AVIF
	WebKit
	Blink			^[21] ^[22]
	Gecko
	Goanna

Media formats

Engine	VP9	AV1	HEVC	H264+AAC	Opus	FLAC
class="table-rh"	WebKit
class="table-rh"	Blink
class="table-rh"	Gecko
class="table-rh"	Goanna

Typography

Engine	TTF	OTF	WOFF	WOFF2	@font-face	Ligatures
class="table-rh"	WebKit
class="table-rh"	Blink
class="table-rh"	Gecko
class="table-rh"	Goanna

Other items

Engine	Web Components	WebGL	WebGPU^[23]	XHTML
class="table-rh"	WebKit
class="table-rh"	Blink			^[24]
class="table-rh"	Gecko
class="table-rh"	Goanna	^[25]

See also

• Comparison of web browsers
• Comparison of email clients

Notes and References

1. Web site: Apple snub stings Mozilla . https://web.archive.org/web/20121025015655/http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-980492.html . Paul Festa . . 2003-01-14 . 2012-10-25 . 2017-02-16 . Paul Festa . dead .
2. Web site: Peter . Bright . Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine . . . April 3, 2013 . March 9, 2017.
3. Web site: Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS! . 2017 . Due to constraints of the iOS platform, all browsers must be built on top of the WebKit rendering engine. . 26 April 2021.
4. Web site: Current browser market share . . 29 October 2021.
5. Web site: About Moonchild Productions . https://web.archive.org/web/20170313050503/http://www.moonchildproductions.info/about.shtml . M. C. Straver . 2017-03-13 . 2018-04-19 . dead .
6. Web site: You Think You Can Forget About the "Legacy" Microsoft Edge? Not So Fast!. Alan. Mendelevich. 14 May 2021.
7. Web site: Mackie . Kurt . Microsoft Edge Browser To Get New Rendering Engine but EdgeHTML Continues . Redmond Mag . 10 December 2018 . 21 December 2019.
8. Web site: Flow Preview Builds . Ekioh. Flow's goal is to render every website correctly... but there is currently a long way left to go. . 5 November 2023.
9. Web site: About Ekioh. Ekioh.
10. Web site: Flow Browser. Ekioh.
11. Web site: A new browser for Magic Leap . 2018-12-03 . 2019-05-20.
12. Web site: Firefox Reality for HoloLens 2 . 2020-05-21 . 2020-07-17.
13. Web site: NetSurf Developer page . Netsurf-browser.org. 7 February 2019.
14. Web site: NetSurf web browser homepage . Netsurf-browser.org. 7 February 2019.
15. Web site: Kling . Andreas . Announcing the Ladybird Browser Initiative . 2024-07-01 . ladybird.org . en.
16. Web site: Andreas Kling . Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project . September 2022 . Please note that we’re still early in development, and many web platform features are missing or broken. It’s going to take a long time before Ladybird is ready for day-to-day browsing..
17. Web site: KHTML repository . Removed for KF6, the 'kf5' branch contains the last maintained state. . GitHub . 5 May 2023.
18. Web site: Port Konqueror away from KHTML. phabricator.kde.org. 5 May 2023.
19. Web site: #1829 Restore Mac OS X code and buildability . 2022-03-31 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220506231130/https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/UXP/issues/1829 . 2022-05-06 . live.
20. Web site: Pale Moon for Android is dead. forum.palemoon.org . April 2019 . 4 May 2021.
21. News: Google kills forthcoming JPEG XL image format in Chromium . 7 August 2023 . The Register . 31 October 2022.
22. Web site: Purdy . Kevin . FSF: Chrome's JPEG XL killing shows how the web works under browser hegemony . 17 April 2023 . Ars Technica . 16 February 2024.
23. Web site: WebGPU Implementation Status . GitHub . 14 March 2024.
24. Web site: Chrome ships WebGPU . developer.chrome.com . Google . 23 February 2024.
25. Web site: Pale Moon - Release Notes. 2023-03-21.