Comparison of lightweight web browsers explained

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.^{[1] [2] [3]}

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,^[4] whereas xombrero can be driven with vi-like keyboard commands.^[5]

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.^[6]

Overview

Browser	Developers	Status	Engine	Programming languages	License	Latest release
						Version	Date
		Benjamin C. Meyer et al.^[7]		QtWebKit^[8]
		Jorge Arellano Cid et al.		Dillo
		Petr Baudiš, Jonas Fonseca, et al.		Links
		Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen		GNU Emacs libraries
	Falkon (QupZilla)	David Rosca
		Dan Kennedy & team
		Christophe Thibault et al.		Gecko / Goanna (fork)
		Mikuláš Patočka, Twibright Labs, et al.		Links
		Lou Montulli, Thomas Dickey, et al.		libwww derivative	C (ISO C)
		John-Mark Bell, Michael Drake, et al.^[9]		NetSurf	C (ANSI C)
		Michał Dutkiewicz^[10]
		LogicWare; LSoft Technologies^[11]
		Florian Bruhin et al.	^[12]	QtWebKit / Qt WebEngine^[13]
	rekonq	Andrea Diamantini et al.
		Christoph Lohmann et al.
		Dieter Plaetinck et al.
		Akinori Ito et al.		w3m
		Andrea Anzani, Ryan Leavengood, et al.
		Marco Peerboom et al.

Operating system support

Browser	BSD	Haiku	Linux	macOS	OpenIndiana	OS/2	QNX	RISC OS	Windows	Android
						^[14]
						^[15]				^[16]
		^[17]
	Falkon (QupZilla)	^[18] ^[19]
				^[20]
									^[21] ^[22]
		^[23]	^[24]						^[25]	^[26]
		^[27]	^[28]
			^[29]
	rekonq

Notes

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		Advanced		Test scores		Plug-in APIs
Browser	GIF, JPEG, PNG	WebP	JavaScript	Frames	Acid3	HTML5test	Netscape	Pepper
							^[30]
	Falkon (QupZilla)						^[31]
							^[32]	^[33]
		^[34]		^[35]				^[36]
							^[37]
							^[38]
	rekonq						^[39]		^[40]
							^[41]
		^[42]		^[43]
							^[44]
							^[45]

Notes

See also

• Comparison of web browsers
• List of web browsers for Unix and Unix-like operating systems

Further reading

• Web site: 7 Lightweight Linux Browsers You may want to Consider for Fast Browsing Experience . Sugianto . Masim . 18 January 2010 . Spirit of Change . 18 June 2014 . none.
• Web site: 3 Alternate Browsers – Lightweight browsers . Arimbra . Krishnan . 17 July 2013 . Geekiest.Net . 18 June 2014 . none.
• Web site: RISC OS browsers . Murray . Richard . 2007 . Rick's World . 26 August 2014 . none.

Notes and References

1. Web site: 5 lesser-known browsers: Free, lightweight and low-maintenance . Arora . Himanshu . 6 November 2013 . . International Data Group . 18 June 2014.
2. Web site: Lightweight Web Browsers . Klimkiewicz . Kamil . 18 January 2003 . . Dice Holdings . 18 June 2014.
3. Web site: Memory usage of the browsers – Lightest browser . Arimbra . Krishnan . 16 July 2013 . Geekiest.Net . 18 June 2014.
4. Web site: surf . 30 August 2014.
5. Web site: xombrero wiki § Quick-Start Tutorial . 1 March 2012 . Peereboom . Marco . Hill . David . Conformal Systems . 30 August 2014 . etal . https://web.archive.org/web/20140928112233/https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero#Quick-Start_Tutorial . 28 September 2014 . dead .
6. Web site: w3m . Ito . Akinori . w3m.sourceforge.net . 30 August 2014.
7. Web site: Arora 0.10.0! . Meyer . Benjamin . 2 October 2009 . Arora Development . 29 August 2014 . 11 November 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20131111232923/http://arorabrowser.blogspot.com/2009/10/arora-0100.html . dead .
8. Web site: Applications Using QtWebKit . Poulain . Benjamin . 10 May 2010 . Qt Wiki . Qt Project Hosting . 21 June 2014 . etal . https://archive.today/20130415155940/http://qt-project.org/wiki/Applications_Using_QtWebKit . 15 April 2013 . dead .
9. Web site: The NetSurf Developers . netsurf-browser.org . 26 August 2014.
10. Web site: Otter Browser . otter-browser.org . 11 April 2017.
11. Web site: About QtWeb . QtWeb.NET . 29 August 2014.
12. Web site: qutebrowser/qutebrowser. GitHub. 23 May 2018.
13. Web site: qutebrowser - ArchWiki. wiki.archlinux.org. 23 May 2018.
14. Web site: Spec Files Extra Repository . . 2011 . OpenIndiana Wiki . 21 June 2014 . 27 November 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201127112908/https://wiki.openindiana.org/oi/Spec+Files+Extra+Repository . dead .
15. Web site: Dillo Web Browser Compatibility . . Dillo.org . 7 July 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110824073658/http://www.dillo.org/Compatibility.html . 24 August 2011 . dead .
16. Web site: Installing Dillo on Cygwin . Vibber . Kelson . Hyperborea . 28 April 2005 . 7 July 2014 . 4 June 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110604040758/http://www.hyperborea.org/software/dillo/cygwin.html . dead .
17. Web site: About ELinks . elinks.cz . 30 August 2014.
18. Web site: Qupzilla - Lightweight multiplatform browser: Download . Qupzilla.com . 13 April 2018.
19. Web site: Download - Falkon . falkon.org . 13 April 2018.
20. Web site: UKmeleon: Unofficial K-Meleon Distributions . 26 March 2011 . kmeleonbrowser.org . 2017-02-14.
21. Web site: Nettle . nettle.sourceforge.net . 26 August 2014.
22. Web site: New Telnet Client and Web Browser for RISC OS . 2 September 2001 . My RISC OS . 26 August 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080522131250/http://www.myriscos.co.uk/Article39.html . 22 May 2008 . dead .
23. Web site: NetSurf GTK Downloads . netsurf-browser.org . 23 March 2021.
24. Web site: NetSurf BeOS Downloads . netsurf-browser.org . 23 March 2021.
25. Web site: NetSurf RISC OS Downloads . netsurf-browser.org . 23 March 2021.
26. Web site: NetSurf Windows Downloads . netsurf-browser.org . 23 March 2021.
27. Web site: OtterBrowser/otter-browser. GitHub. en. 2017-04-11.
28. Web site: Otter browser: new recipe by miqlas · Pull Request #1006 · haikuports/haikuports. GitHub. en. 2017-04-11.
29. Web site: QtWeb - Web Browser . 31 May 2013 . Haikuware . 30 August 2014 . https://archive.today/20140830201914/http://www.haikuware.com/directory/view-details/internet-network/web-browsers/qtweb-web-browser . 30 August 2014 . dead .
30. Web site: HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.21 (KHTML, like Gecko) Arora/0.11.0 Safari/537.21 . HTML5test.com . 22 July 2014.
31. Web site: HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) QupZilla/2.1.99 Safari/537.36 . HTML5test.com . 21 February 2017.
32. Web site: HTML5test - How well does your browser support HTML5?. html5test.com. 23 May 2018.
33. Web site: ThirdPartyPlugins . kmeleonbrowser.org . 28 July 2014.
34. Web site: 5 Free and Open Source Web Browsers That You May Have Never Heard Of . Auza . Jun . 27 June 2009 . 26 June 2014.
35. Web site: User Information.
36. Web site: 0001896: NPAPI plugin support . NetSurf Bug Report System . 22 October 2010 . 14 August 2014.
37. Web site: HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/602.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Otter/0.9.91 . HTML5test.com . 11 April 2017.
38. Web site: HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux; en-GB) AppleWebKit/534.34 (KHTML, like Gecko) QtWeb Internet Browser/3.8.5 . HTML5test.com . 22 July 2014.
39. Web site: HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.21 (KHTML, like Gecko) rekonq/2.4.2 Safari/537.21 . HTML5test.com . 22 July 2014.
40. Web site: ReKonq Gaining Chrome Extension Support, Still Sponsored By Blue Systems . Howell . Dean . 22 May 2013 . The Powerbase . 28 July 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130610192118/http://www.thepowerbase.com/2013/05/rekonq-gaining-chrome-extension-support-still-sponsored-by-blue-systems/ . 10 June 2013 . dead .
41. Web site: HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Unix; en-US) AppleWebKit/537.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/24.0.1295.0 Safari/537.15 Surf/0.6 . HTML5test.com . 13 August 2014.
42. Web site: How to Browse From the Linux Terminal With W3M . 23 January 2012 . Hoffman . Chris . How-To Geek . How-To Geek, LLC . 30 August 2014.
43. Web site: GitHub . w3m man page . 14 March 2022.
44. Web site: HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Haiku R1 x86) AppleWebKit/606.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) WebPositive/1.2 Version/11.1 Safari/606.1.4 . HTML5test.com . 24 January 2019.
45. Web site: HTML5test results for: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/538.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/538.15 Version/6.0 . HTML5test.com . 28 July 2014.