Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Aug 1, 2026

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.

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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.123

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
Arora Benjamin C. Meyer et al.7 Discontinued QtWebKit8 C++ GPL-2.0-or-later 0.11.09 Edit this on Wikidata 2010-09-27
Dillo Jorge Arellano Cid et al. Active Dillo C, C++ GPL-3.0-or-later 3.3.010 Edit this on Wikidata 2026-04-26
ELinks Petr Baudiš, Jonas Fonseca, et al. Active Links C, C++ GPL-2.0-only 0.20.011 Edit this on Wikidata 2026-07-26
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 26.04.312 Edit this on Wikidata 2026-06-28
hv3 Dan Kennedy & team Discontinued Tkhtml Tcl GPL
K-Meleon Christophe Thibault et al. Active Gecko / Goanna (fork) C++ GPL 76.4.713 Edit this on Wikidata 2023-04-07
Links Mikuláš Patočka, Twibright Labs, et al. Active Links C GPL-2.0-or-later 2.3014 Edit this on Wikidata 2024-07-27
Lynx Lou Montulli, Thomas Dickey, et al. Active libwww derivative C (ISO C) GPL-2.0-only 2.9.315 Edit this on Wikidata 2026-05-27
NetSurf John-Mark Bell, Michael Drake, et al.16 Active NetSurf C (ANSI C) GPL-2.0-only 3.1117 Edit this on Wikidata 2023-12-28
Otter Browser Michał Dutkiewicz18 Active QtWebKit / Qt WebEngine C++ GPL-3.0-or-later 1.0.0319 Edit this on Wikidata 2022-02-22
QtWeb LogicWare; LSoft Technologies20 Unmaintained QtWebKit C++ GPL-2.0-or-later 3.8.521 Edit this on Wikidata 2013-09-09
qutebrowser Freya Bruhin et al. Active 22 QtWebKit / Qt WebEngine23 Python3 GPL-3.0-or-later 3.7.024 Edit this on Wikidata 2026-04-03
rekonq Andrea Diamantini et al. Discontinued QtWebKit8 C++ GPLv3 2.4.225 Edit this on Wikidata 2014-01-12
surf Christoph Lohmann et al. Active WebKitGTK C MIT 2.126 Edit this on Wikidata 2021-05-08
uzbl Dieter Plaetinck et al. Discontinued WebKitGTK C, Python GPL-3.0-only 0.9.127 Edit this on Wikidata 2016-10-27
w3m Akinori Ito et al. Unmaintained w3m C MIT 0.5.628 Edit this on Wikidata 2026-01-23
WebPositive Andrea Anzani, Ryan Leavengood, et al. Active HaikuWebkit C++ MIT 1.3-alpha29 Edit this on Wikidata 2021-08-01
xombrero Marco Peerboom et al. Discontinued WebKitGTK C, JavaScript ISC 1.6.430 Edit this on Wikidata 2015-02-17

Operating system support

Browser BSD Haiku Linux macOS OpenIndiana OS/2 QNX RISC OS Windows
Arora Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes31 Yes No No Yes
Dillo Yes Yes32 Yes Yes Yes33 No No Yes33 Cygwin3334
ELinks Yes35 ? Yes35 Yes35 Yes35 Yes35 No35 Dropped35 ?
Falkon (QupZilla) Dropped3637 Yes3637 Yes3637 Dropped38 No Dropped3637 No No Dropped37
K-Meleon Wine No Wine39 Wine No No No No Yes
Links Unofficial No Yes Unofficial ? Yes No No Yes
Lynx Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes4041 Yes
NetSurf Yes42 Yes43 Yes42 Yes42 Yes42 No ? Yes44 Yes45
Otter Browser Yes46 Unofficial47 Yes46 Yes46 No No No No Yes
QtWeb Yes Unofficial48 Yes Yes Unofficiali No No No Yes
qutebrowser Yes ? Yes Yes ? ? ? ? Yes
rekonq Yes No Yes No Unofficiali No No No Inactiveii
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. Must be built from source code; requires a compatible version of Qt.
  2. rekonq v1.1 for Windows was published in September 2012. As of June 2014, it is the only published version for Windows.49

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
Arora Yes No Yes Yes 100/100i 359/55050 Noii No
Dillo Yes Yes51 No Partial N/Aiii N/Aiii No No
ELinks No No Partialiv Partial N/Aiii N/Aiii No No
Falkon (QupZilla) Yes Yes Yes Yes 100/100i 497/55053 Partial Partial
K-Meleon Yes No Yes Yes 100/100i 416/55554 Partial55 No
Links Yesv Yes Novi Partial N/Aiii N/Aiii No No
Lynx No No No Partial N/Aiii N/Aiii No No
NetSurf Yes57 Yes Partial58 Yes N/Aiii N/Aiii No59 No
Otter Browser Yes Yes Yes Yes 100/100 370/55060 Yes No
QtWeb Yes No Yes Yes 100/100ivii 234/55061 Noii No
qutebrowser Yes Yes Yes Yes 99/100 521/550 No No
rekonq Yes No Yes Yes 100/100i 385/55562 Noii Partial63
surf Yes Yesviii Yes Yes 100/100i 385/50065 Yes ?
uzbl Yes Yes Yes Yes 98/100 461/500 Yes ?
w3m Yes66 No No67 Yes N/Aiii N/Aiii No No
WebPositive Yes No Yes Yes 98/100i 358/50068 No No
xombrero Yes Yesviii Yes Yes 100/100 385/50069 Yes ?
Notes
  1. Some tests take too much time to complete.
  2. NPAPI is ported to QtWebKit, but is not implemented in this browser.
  3. The test requires JavaScript, which is not sufficiently supported by this browser.
  4. ELinks implements Mozilla's SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine.52
  5. Only Links 2 supports graphics.
  6. JavaScript support was removed in 2007 (in release 2.1pre29).56
  7. The final state does not match the reference rendering.
  8. WebP is supported via the WebKitGTK browser engine.64
See also

See also

References

References

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Further reading

Further reading