This reminds me of the Servo project's journey. Always impressed to see another implementation of the WHATWG specs.
It's interesting to see Zig being chosen here over Rust for a browser engine component. Rust has kind of become the default answer for "safe browser components" (e.g., Servo, Firefox's oxidation), primarily because the borrow checker maps so well to the ownership model of a DOM tree in theory. But in practice, DOM nodes often need shared mutable state (parent pointers, child pointers, event listeners), which forces you into Rc<RefCell<T>> hell in Rust.
Zig's manual memory management might actually be more ergonomic for a DOM implementation specifically because you can model the graph relationships more directly without fighting the compiler, provided you have a robust strategy for the arena allocation. Excited to learn from Lightpanda's implementation when it's out.
A language which is not 1.0, and has repeatedly changed its IO implementation in a non-backwards-compatible way is certainly a courageous choice for production code.
- Fetch and execute JavaScript that manipulates the DOM
But not the following:
- Fetch and parse CSS to apply styling rules
- Calculate layout
- Fetch images and fonts for display
- Paint pixels to render the visual result
- Composite layers for smooth scrolling and animations
So it's effectively a net+DOM+script-only browser with no style/layout/paint.
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Definitely fun for me to watch as someone who is making a lightweight browser engine with a different set of trade-offs (net+DOM+style/layout/paint-only with no script)
it's so tiring that every time there's a post about something being implemented in Zig or C or C++, the Rust brigade shows up trying to pick up a fight.
This reminds me of the Servo project's journey. Always impressed to see another implementation of the WHATWG specs.
It's interesting to see Zig being chosen here over Rust for a browser engine component. Rust has kind of become the default answer for "safe browser components" (e.g., Servo, Firefox's oxidation), primarily because the borrow checker maps so well to the ownership model of a DOM tree in theory. But in practice, DOM nodes often need shared mutable state (parent pointers, child pointers, event listeners), which forces you into Rc<RefCell<T>> hell in Rust.
Zig's manual memory management might actually be more ergonomic for a DOM implementation specifically because you can model the graph relationships more directly without fighting the compiler, provided you have a robust strategy for the arena allocation. Excited to learn from Lightpanda's implementation when it's out.
I've been using it for months now ever since I saw their presentation at GitHub
This is a common flow for me
I even have it as a shell alias, wv(). It's way better than the crusty old lynx and links on sites that need JS.It's solid. Definitely worth a check
A language which is not 1.0, and has repeatedly changed its IO implementation in a non-backwards-compatible way is certainly a courageous choice for production code.
This table is informative as to exactly what lightpanda is: https://lightpanda.io/blog/posts/what-is-a-true-headless-bro...
TL;DR: It does the following:
- Fetch HTML over the network
- Parse HTML into a DOM tree
- Fetch and execute JavaScript that manipulates the DOM
But not the following:
- Fetch and parse CSS to apply styling rules
- Calculate layout
- Fetch images and fonts for display
- Paint pixels to render the visual result
- Composite layers for smooth scrolling and animations
So it's effectively a net+DOM+script-only browser with no style/layout/paint.
---
Definitely fun for me to watch as someone who is making a lightweight browser engine with a different set of trade-offs (net+DOM+style/layout/paint-only with no script)
it's so tiring that every time there's a post about something being implemented in Zig or C or C++, the Rust brigade shows up trying to pick up a fight.
Wow. Lightpanda is absolutely bonkers of a project. I'd pay dearly for such an option a few years back.
Because We're Not Smart Enough for C++ or Rust
Very refreshing. Most engineers would rather saw their leg off.
This looks incredible, congratulations!
Love to see Zig winning!
zigdom all-diy
Any older project similar to this? Headless browser with js support I mean, I want to check various implementations of this idea.
finally, rewrite in zig movement is coming
I hate to say it, but time is quickly running out for Zig(( AI might never pick it up properly and without that it will never go out of its niche