Skip to main content
Ladybird is a truly independent web browser — not a Chromium shell, not a WebKit port, not a Firefox fork. Every component, from the HTML parser and CSS engine to the JavaScript interpreter and network stack, is written from scratch against the WHATWG, W3C, and ECMA specifications. Ladybird is currently pre-alpha and aimed at developers who want to build, contribute to, or learn from a clean-room browser implementation.

Introduction

Learn what Ladybird is, its goals, roadmap, and what makes it different from other browsers.

Build on Linux & macOS

Step-by-step build instructions for Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, macOS, and more.

Architecture Overview

Understand the multi-process design: UI, WebContent, RequestServer, and ImageDecoder.

Contributing

Get involved — find bugs, write tests, and submit issues that move the project forward.

​
What’s Inside

LibWeb

The HTML/CSS rendering engine — implements layout, painting, the DOM, and Web APIs from spec.

LibJS & LibWasm

A from-scratch JavaScript engine and a complete WebAssembly implementation.

IPC & Services

How browser processes communicate safely using LibIPC.

DevTools

Firefox DevTools integration via the remote debugging protocol.

Core Libraries

AK, LibCore, LibGfx, LibCrypto — the standard library powering Ladybird.

Testing

Run in-tree tests, Web Platform Tests, and sanitizer builds.

​
Get Up and Running

1

Install prerequisites

Install CMake ≥ 3.30, a C++23-capable compiler (clang-21 or gcc-14), Ninja, and Qt6 development packages for your platform.
2

Clone the repository

3

Build and run

This builds a Release configuration and launches the browser. See the full build guide for platform-specific instructions.
Ladybird is pre-alpha software. It must be built from source. Expect rough edges — the project improves every day.