Alternatives to Flow Browser

An independent HTML browser engine and browser that lays out pages in parallel across CPU cores. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

  • Flow Browser

    An independent HTML browser engine and browser that lays out pages in parallel across CPU cores.

    FreeProprietaryLinux

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as Flow Browser.

  • Ladybird

    Explore an independent browser with its own rendering engine.

    FreeOpen sourcemacOSLinux

    Ladybird is another independent browser with its own engine, open source under BSD-2-Clause for macOS and Linux, but the project describes it as pre-alpha for developers.

  • Servo

    Experiment with a browser engine written in Rust.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxAndroid

    Servo is an open-source browser engine written in Rust with a shell for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android, but it remains a prototype rather than an everyday browser.

  • NetSurf

    A small, fast open-source web browser written in C with its own layout engine.

    FreeOpen sourcemacOSLinux

    NetSurf has its own open-source layout engine written in C and runs light on low-resource machines, but its support for script-heavy modern websites is limited.

  • Dillo

    Browse lightweight pages with a small graphical browser.

    FreeOpen sourcemacOSLinux

    Dillo is a small open-source graphical browser for Linux and macOS with modest resource requirements, though modern web applications may need a more complete engine.

  • Chromium

    The open-source browser project that Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi are all built from.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Chromium swaps the independent engine for the open-source upstream codebase behind most browsers, packaged by most Linux distributions, giving mainstream site compatibility instead of a new engine.

  • Firefox

    The main browser not built on Chromium, with tracking protection turned on by default.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxAndroidiOS

    Firefox uses the main open-source engine not built on Chromium, with Linux builds and strong extension support, trading the multithreaded layout of Flow for a mature everyday browser.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.

  • Lightpanda

    A headless browser written from scratch in Zig for web automation, crawling and AI agents.

    FreeOpen sourceLinuxCommand line

  • Speedometer

    A browser benchmark that measures web app responsiveness by simulating user actions in demo applications.

    FreeProprietaryWeb

  • MotionMark

    A browser graphics benchmark that measures how well a browser animates complex scenes at a target frame rate.

    FreeProprietaryWeb

  • JetStream

    A JavaScript and WebAssembly benchmark suite that measures how fast browsers start up and run advanced web apps.

    FreeProprietaryWeb