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.[1] Then, in 2013, a modified version of WebKit was officially forked as the Blink engine.[2]

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[3]
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,[4] initially forked from Gecko Pale Moon, Basilisk, K-Meleon browsers
NetSurf NetSurf developers[5] GNU GPLv2 NetSurf browser
Servo Experimental[6][7] Linux Foundation Mozilla Public Experimental browsers[8][9]
LibWeb Experimental; in pre-alpha[10] Ladybird Browser Initiative[11] 2-clause BSD Ladybird browser[12]
KHTML[13] Discontinued KDE GNU LGPL Formerly in the Konqueror browser[14]
Tkhtml Liem Bahneman[15] BSD Formerly in Html Viewer 3 browser
Mariner Netscape Communications NPL Netscape Communicator 5.0
Flow[16] Experimental; in beta[16] Ekioh[17] Proprietary Flow browser[18]
Trident Discontinued Microsoft Internet Explorer browser; Microsoft Edge IE mode
EdgeHTML Microsoft Some UWP apps;[19] formerly Microsoft Edge browser[20]
Presto Opera Opera Mini browser in Extreme/Mini mode, where contents arrive pre-rendered using this engine server-side[21]
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[3]
WebKitYes[note 1]YesYesYesYesYes[22]Yes
BlinkYesYesYesYesYes[note 2]YesNo
GeckoYesYesYesYesYesYesYes[23]
GoannaYesYes[24]YesYesNoNo[25]No
NetSurf[26]YesNoYesYesYesNoNo
TridentYesNoNoNoNoNoNo

Image formats

EngineJPEGJPEG 2000JPEG XLJPEG XL HDRJPEG HDRGIFBMPPNGAPNGSVGWebPAVIFAVIF HDRHEICHEIC HDR
WebKitYesYesYesYes[27][28]Yes [27][28]YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYes [27][28]
BlinkYesNoExperimental [29] [note 3]YesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNoNo
GeckoYesNoExperimental [30] [note 4]Experimental [30] [note 5]NoYesYesYesYesYesYesYesNoNoNo
GoannaYesNoYesNoNoYesYesYesYesYesYesNoNoNoNo
NetSurf[31]YesNoYesNoNoYesYesYesNoYesYesNoNoNoNo
TridentYesNoNo[32]No?YesYesYesNoPartialNoNo[33]NoNo[34]No

Media formats

EngineVP9AV1HEVCH264OpusFLAC
WebKitYesYesYesYes?Yes
BlinkYesYesYesYesYesYes
GeckoYesYesPartial [35] [note 6]YesYesYes
GoannaYesYesNoYesYesYes
NetSurfNoNoNo?No?
TridentNo[36]No[37]Partial[36]Yes[36]No[38]No[39]

Typography

EngineTTFOTFWOFFWOFF2@font-face CSS ruleLigatures (font-variant-ligatures CSS property)
WebKitYesYesYesYesYesYes
BlinkYesYesYesYesYesYes
GeckoYesYesYesYesYesYes
GoannaYesYesYesYesYesYes
NetSurf??NoNoPartial[40]No
TridentPartial[41]Partial[41]Yes[42]No[43]Yes[44]No[45]

Other items

EngineWeb ComponentsWebGLWebGPU[46]XHTML
WebKitPartial[47]YesYesYes
BlinkYesYesYesYes
GeckoYesYesYesYes
GoannaYes[48]YesNoYes
NetSurfNoNoNo?
TridentNo[47]Yes[49]No[50]Yes[51]

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.
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