Comparison of browser engines

This article compares browser engines.

Some of these engines have shared origins. For example, the WebKit engine was created by forking the KHTML engine in 2001. Then, in 2013, a modified version of WebKit was officially forked as the Blink engine.

General information

EngineDevelopment
status		CreatorsLicenseUsed in
WebKit Active Apple, initially forked from KHTML GNU LGPL, BSD-style Safari browser, GNOME Web, Konqueror, Orion and all browsers on App Store for iOS
Blink Google, initially forked from WebKit All Chromium-based browsers
Gecko Mozilla Mozilla Public Firefox browser and its forks; SeaMonkey browser, Thunderbird email client
Goanna M. C. Straver, initially forked from Gecko Pale Moon, Basilisk, K-Meleon browsers
NetSurf NetSurf developers GNU GPLv2 NetSurf browser
Servo Experimental Linux Foundation Mozilla Public Experimental browsers
LibWeb Experimental; in pre-alpha Ladybird Browser Initiative 2-clause BSD Ladybird browser
KHTML Discontinued KDE GNU LGPL Formerly in the Konqueror browser
Tkhtml Liem Bahneman BSD Formerly in Html Viewer 3 browser
Mariner Netscape Communications NPL Netscape Communicator 5.0
Flow Experimental; in beta Ekioh Proprietary Flow browser
Trident Discontinued Microsoft Internet Explorer browser; Microsoft Edge IE mode
EdgeHTML Microsoft Some UWP apps; formerly Microsoft Edge browser
Presto Opera Opera Mini browser in Extreme/Mini mode, where contents arrive pre-rendered using this engine server-side
NetFront Access Co., Ltd. Formerly in the NetFront browser, Palm Blazer 3 and up, the Dreamcast web browser, the PSP web browser, and PS3 web browser versions prior to system software 4.10.
Tasman Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 Macintosh Edition

Support

These tables summarize what stable engines support.

Operating systems

The operating systems that engines can run on without emulation.

EngineWindowsmacOSLinuxBSDHaikuAndroidiOS
WebKitYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
BlinkYesYesYesYesYesYesNo
GeckoYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
GoannaYesYesYesYesNoNoNo
NetSurfYesNoYesYesYesNoNo
TridentYesNoNoNoNoNoNo

Image formats

EngineJPEGJPEG 2000JPEG XLJPEG XL HDRJPEG HDRGIFBMPPNGAPNGSVGWebPAVIFAVIF HDRHEICHEIC HDR
WebKitYesYesYesYesYes YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
BlinkYesNoExperimental YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNoNo
GeckoYesNoExperimental Experimental NoYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNoNoNo
GoannaYesNoYesNoNoYesYesYesYesYesYesNoNoNoNo
NetSurfYesNoYesNoNoYesYesYesNoYesYesNoNoNoNo
TridentYesNoNo No?YesYesYesNoPartialNoNo NoNoNo

Media formats

EngineVP9AV1HEVCH264OpusFLAC
WebKitYesYesYesYes?Yes
BlinkYesYesYesYesYesYes
GeckoYesYesPartial YesYesYes
GoannaYesYesNoYesYesYes
NetSurfNoNoNo?No?
TridentNoNoPartialYesNoNo

Typography

EngineTTFOTFWOFFWOFF2@font-face CSS ruleLigatures (font-variant-ligatures CSS property)
WebKitYesYesYesYesYesYes
BlinkYesYesYesYesYesYes
GeckoYesYesYesYesYesYes
GoannaYesYesYesYesYesYes
NetSurf??NoNoPartialNo
TridentPartialPartialYesNoYesNo

Other items

EngineWeb ComponentsWebGLWebGPUXHTML
WebKitPartialYesYesYes
BlinkYesYesYesYes
GeckoYesYesYesYes
GoannaYesYesNoYes
NetSurfNoNoNo?
TridentNoYesNoYes

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Must be built from source code.
  2. ↑ Only available via QtWebEngine.
  3. ↑ Expected to ship in Chrome 155.
  4. ↑ Enabled by default on Firefox Nightly.
  5. ↑ Converts images to SDR.
  6. ↑ HEVC 10-bit HDR videos are supported but not rendered correctly.

References

  1. ↑ Paul Festa (14 January 2003). "Apple snub stings Mozilla". CNET Networks. Archived from the original on 25 October 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  2. ↑ Bright, Peter (3 April 2013). "Google going its own way, forking WebKit rendering engine". Ars Technica. Conde Nast. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Open-sourcing Chrome on iOS!". 2017. Retrieved 26 April 2021. Due to constraints of the iOS platform, all browsers must be built on top of the WebKit rendering engine.
  4. ↑ M. C. Straver. "About Moonchild Productions". Archived from the original on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 19 April 2018.
  5. ↑ "NetSurf Developer page". Netsurf-browser.org. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
  6. ↑ Developers, The Servo Project. "Two months in Servo: CSS nesting, Shadow DOM, Clipboard API, and more! - Servo aims to empower developers with a lightweight, high-performance alternative for embedding web technologies in applications". Servo. Retrieved 10 May 2025.
  7. ↑ "Servo engines written in Rust deliver memory safety and multithreading". Mozilla Research. Archived from the original on 11 June 2020. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  8. ↑ "A new browser for Magic Leap". 3 December 2018. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  9. ↑ "Firefox Reality for HoloLens 2". 21 May 2020. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
  10. ↑ "Breadcrumbs/README.MD". GitHub. 25 November 2024. Archived from the original on 30 March 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  11. ↑ Kling, Andreas (1 July 2024). "Announcing the Ladybird Browser Initiative". ladybird.org.
  12. ↑ Andreas Kling (12 September 2022). "Ladybird: A new cross-platform browser project". Please note that we're still early in development, and many web platform features are missing or broken. It's going to take a long time before Ladybird is ready for day-to-day browsing.
  13. ↑ "KHTML repository". GitHub. Retrieved 5 May 2023. Removed for KF6, the 'kf5' branch contains the last maintained state.
  14. ↑ "Port Konqueror away from KHTML". phabricator.kde.org. Retrieved 5 May 2023.
  15. ↑ Mintert, Stefan (1995). "Weberknechte - WWW Dokumente komfortabel erstellen". iX (in German) (8). Heinz Heise.
  16. 1 2 "Flow Preview Builds". Ekioh. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  17. ↑ "About Ekioh". Ekioh.
  18. ↑ "Flow Browser". Ekioh.
  19. ↑ Mendelevich, Alan (14 May 2021). "You Think You Can Forget About the "Legacy" Microsoft Edge? Not So Fast!".
  20. ↑ Mackie, Kurt (10 December 2018). "Microsoft Edge Browser To Get New Rendering Engine but EdgeHTML Continues". Redmond Mag. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
  21. ↑ "Opera Browsers, Modes & Engines". dev.opera.com. 2 June 2015. Archived from the original on 14 June 2015.
  22. ↑ "GitHub - Igalia/wpe-android: WPE WebKit for Android · GitHub". github.com. 24 February 2021. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  23. ↑ "GitHub - minh-ton/reynard-browser: An experimental Gecko-based web browser for iOS 13+. · GitHub". github.com. 31 January 2026. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  24. ↑ "#1829 Restore Mac OS X code and buildability". 31 March 2022. Archived from the original on 6 May 2022.
  25. ↑ "Pale Moon for Android is dead". forum.palemoon.org. April 2019. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  26. ↑ "NetSurf Downloads". NetSurf. 2009. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  27. 1 2 3 "Bug 282299: [HDR] Support HDR Images". Webkit Team. 29 October 2024. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  28. 1 2 3 "iOS 26: Four new Safari features you may have missed". 9to5mac. 16 August 2025. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
  29. ↑ "Feature: JPEG XL decoding support (image/jxl) in blink". 24 August 2026. Retrieved 27 August 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  30. 1 2 "Intent to ship: JPEG XL". 24 August 2026. Retrieved 27 August 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  31. ↑ "NetSurf". NetSurf. 28 December 2023. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  32. ↑ "JPEG XL image format". Can I use... Archived from the original on 1 April 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  33. ↑ "AVIF image format". Can I use... Archived from the original on 5 April 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  34. ↑ "HEIF/HEIC image format". Can I use... Archived from the original on 8 April 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  35. ↑ "Audio and video files in Firefox". 14 January 2026. Retrieved 27 August 2026.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  36. 1 2 3 "Browser Video: Codecs, Formats & Hardware Acceleration". Helge Klein. 4 December 2017. Archived from the original on 25 March 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  37. ↑ "AV1 video format". Can I use... Archived from the original on 4 April 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  38. ↑ "Opus audio format". Can I use... Archived from the original on 9 April 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  39. ↑ "FLAC audio format". Can I use... Archived from the original on 30 March 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  40. ↑ "NetSurf 2.9". Change Log. NetSurf. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  41. 1 2 "TTF/OTF - TrueType and OpenType font support". Can I use... Archived from the original on 17 January 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  42. ↑ "WOFF - Web Open Font Format". Can I use... Archived from the original on 9 February 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  43. ↑ "WOFF 2.0 - Web Open Font Format". Can I use... Archived from the original on 30 January 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  44. ↑ "@font-face Web fonts". Can I use... Archived from the original on 21 March 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  45. ↑ "CSS property: font-variant-ligatures". Can I use... Archived from the original on 28 December 2024. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  46. ↑ "WebGPU Implementation Status". GitHub. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
  47. 1 2 "Custom Elements (V1)". Can I use... Archived from the original on 2 March 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  48. ↑ "v32.1.0 (2023-03-21)". Release notes for version 33 releases. Pale Moon. 21 March 2023. Archived from the original on 1 April 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  49. ↑ "WebGL - 3D Canvas graphics". Can I use... Archived from the original on 5 July 2023. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  50. ↑ "WebGPU". Can I use... Archived from the original on 5 April 2025. Retrieved 17 April 2025.
  51. ↑ "XHTML served as application/xhtml+xml". Can I use... Archived from the original on 12 December 2024. Retrieved 17 April 2025.