New Browser Entrant: Ladybird Develops New Browser Engine from Scratch

The browser market, which was once dominated by multiple brands with their own engines, has been largely controlled by Chromium's Blink engine and Apple Safari's WebKit engine. Firefox, which uses the Gecko engine, has a relatively small market share.

Safari is mainly used within the Apple ecosystem, so Google's Blink engine is essentially in control of the browser market. Most browsers are now based on Chromium and do not have their own engines.

Unexpectedly, a new player has entered the browser market: Ladybird, a non-profit organization that is developing a brand new, user-tracking-free browser from scratch.

The project has already received significant funding from well-known individuals and organizations, including a $100,000 donation from Shopify and a $1 million donation from the founder of Github.

About Ladybird Browser:

Ladybird is a new browser and network engine that prioritizes web standards, providing good performance, stability, and security for modern networks. Initially developed as an HTML viewer for the SerenityOS operating system, Ladybird has now evolved into a cross-platform browser supporting Linux, Mac, and other Unix-like systems. The Ladybird team plans to release the first alpha version in 2026.

No Ads, No Tracking, Only Donations:

Unlike other browsers that use default search engines or collect user data to sell to ad networks, Ladybird will not engage in these practices. Instead, Ladybird will rely solely on individual or corporate donations, without any profit motive, default search engine, or user monetization.

What is "From Scratch"?

Ladybird browser does not use any existing browser engine, such as Blink, WebKit, or Gecko, nor will it use code from other browser engines (e.g., the now-defunct IE browser's Trident engine).

The browser will develop a brand new engine from scratch, simultaneously forking out from the SerenityOS project to avoid any constraints.

While the browser engine is being developed from scratch, other aspects such as image, audio, video, encryption, and graphics rendering will use third-party open-source libraries to shorten the development cycle and reduce duplicated work.

Will a Mobile Version be Released?

There are currently no plans to release Android and iOS versions, but after the desktop version is stabilized, the browser team will focus more on developing mobile versions.