Comparison of web browser engines

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number
of web browser engines. While these are mainly used in web browsers, they
are also used in email clients for rendering HTML email, and used to render
EPUB e-books, for example. The selection of engines that remain in
development is much smaller than what is available for most other types of
desktop software. A 2015 Popular Mechanics article, for instance, noted that
"every browser has a rendering engine, but some of them share DNA, and
virtually all of them date back decades."[1]

This article is not all-inclusive—see other articles for detailed comparisons of

HTML5 feature support, CSS feature support, and the like. Unless otherwise
specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without
any add-ons, extensions or external programs.
Usage share by percent of layout
engines/web browsers.

Contents
General information
Release history
Operating system support
See also
Notes
References

General information
Basic general information about the engines.
 Software Leading Target Programming
Engine Developer(s)
license application application(s) language
GNU
The Chromium Google Google Chrome &
Blink[note 1] Project and others
LGPL,
Chrome Opera from 15.0
C++
BSD-style
GNU
Dillo Dillo developers Dillo Dillo C
LGPL

EdgeHTML[note 2] Microsoft Proprietary Edge Edge C++[2]

Mozilla
Mozilla Firefox &
Foundation/Mozilla Mozilla
Gecko MPL Mozilla C++
Corporation and Firefox
Thunderbird
others
Moonchild Pale Moon &
Goanna[note 3] MPL Pale Moon C++
Productions Basilisk
GNU Novell
GtkHTML[note 4] GNOME Novell Evolution C
LGPL Evolution

Hubbub Andrew Sidwell MIT[3] NetSurf NetSurf C

iCab[note 4] Alexander Clauss Proprietary iCab iCab ?

GNU Konqueror &

KHTML KDE Konqueror C++
LGPL KMail
NetFront Access Co. Proprietary NetFront NetFront ?

Presto Opera Software Proprietary Opera Opera[note 5] C++[4]

Prince (formerly
Prince YesLogic Pty Ltd Proprietary Prince called Prince Mercury
XML)
Internet Explorer
Microsoft for Mac &
Tasman[note 4] Microsoft Proprietary ?
Entourage Microsoft
Entourage
The Bat! Ritlabs Proprietary The Bat! The Bat! Delphi
Internet
Trident[note 4] Microsoft Proprietary Internet Explorer C++[5]
Explorer
Mozilla Research and
Servo MPL Rust
others
GNU
Apple
WebKit[note 6] Apple Inc. and others LGPL,
Safari
Apple Safari C++
BSD-style
XEP RenderX Proprietary XEP XEP Java

Release history
A brief overview of the release history.
 First public release First stable release Latest stable release
Engine
Date Version Date Version Date Version
3 April No 3 April No SVN version
Blink N/A
2013[6] number 2013[6] number only

12 November
EdgeHTML 12.0 15 July 2015 12.10240 17 October 2017 16.16299
2014
58.0.2 /
Standard
7 February 2018[7]
7 December 19 March
Gecko "Preview" M3 52.6.0 /
1998 1999 Extended Support
23 January
Release
2018[8]

4 August 26 January 22 November

Goanna "Preview" 2.0 3.0[10]
2015 2016[9] 2016

14 December
GtkHTML 2000 ? 2000 ? 3.28.2
2009
Hubbub 22 April 2002 ? 17 May 2007 1.0 16 February 2016 3.3

iCab 1998 ? 1998 ? 1 January 2008 3.0.5[11]

October
KHTML October 2000 ? ? 4 August 2009 4.3
2000
NetFront 1995 ? 1995 ? 13 January 2010 4.0
13 November 28 January
Presto 1.0 1.0 5 November 2012 2.12.388
2002 2003
Prince April 2003 1.0 April 2003 1.0 August 2017 11.3
27 March 27 March
Tasman 0 0 11 May 2004 1.0
2000 2000
27 April
The Bat! 27 April 2000 1.32 1.32 24 August 2009 4.2.10
2000
No October No
Trident April 1997 17 October 2013 7.0
number 1997 number
7 January 23 June SVN version
WebKit 48 85 N/A
2003 2003 only
XEP 1999 fo2pdf ? ? March 2010 4.18

Operating system support

The operating systems the engines can run on without emulation.
 Symbian
Engine Windows macOS Linux BSD Unix
OS

Blink[note 7] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Dillo Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[note 8] No

EdgeHTML Yes No No No No No

Gecko Yes Yes[note 9] Yes Yes Yes No

Goanna Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No

GtkHTML Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Hubbub No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
iCab No Yes No No No No
KHTML Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

NetFront Partial[note 10] No Yes No No Dropped[12]

Dropped Dropped Dropped Dropped Dropped

Presto Yes
(12.16) (12.16) (12.16)[note 11] (12.16)[note 12] (10.11)

Prince Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Servo[13] Yes Yes Yes Unknown Unknown No

Dropped
Tasman No No No No No
(5.2.3)
The Bat! Yes No No No No No
Dropped
Trident Yes No No[14] No No
(5.0)
WebKit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

XEP[15] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

See also
List of layout engines
Comparison of web browsers
Comparison of e-mail clients
Comparison of layout engines (HTML5)— see "Comparison of layout engines" in box below for more
Comparison of layout engines (CSS)— see "Comparison of layout engines" in box below for more

Notes
1. Blink was created by Google by forking WebKit.
2. EdgeHTML was created by Microsoft by forking T
rident.
3. Goanna was created by Moonchild Productions by forking Gecko."Goanna" (http://moonchildproductions.info/goann
a.shtml).
4. This engine is not currently being developed.
5. Opera switched to WebKit, then followed Google to Blink.
6. WebKit was created by Apple by forking KHTML.
7. Blink cannot be used alone and must be used via Chromium's content layer which has wide platform support.
"Blink"
(http://www.chromium.org/blink).
8. Dillo has been compiled successfully forIRIX, and hence is capable of running natively on UNIX.
 9. Although dropped in current version, older versions of the Gecko web browser engine for Mac OS 8.6 and Mac OS 9
are still available for download fromNetscape's Archived Products site(http://browser.netscape.com/ns8/download/a
rchive70x.jsp). An updated port of theMozilla Application Suitefor classic Mac OS systems is maintained as
Classilla.
10. NetFront supports Windows CE and Android, but is mainly used as an embedded browser on low-end mobile
phones.
11. Opera has released a developer version of the Blink-based Opera 24 in July 2014.
12. The newer versions of Opera (based on the Blink engine) will not be released for
FreeBSD anymore.

References
1. Limer, Eric (2015-07-29). "Can Microsoft Edge Start the Browser War We So Desperately Need?"(http://www.popula
rmechanics.com/technology/a16653/windows-10-microsoft-edge-browser-war/) . Popular Mechanics. Retrieved
2016-01-07.
2. Hachamovitch, Dean (2007-12-14),Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A Milestone(http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/200
7/12/19/internet-explorer-8-and-acid2-a-milestone.aspx)
, Microsoft
3. "libhubbub.git - HTML5 parser library"(http://git.netsurf-browser.org/libhubbub.git/tree/COPYING). Retrieved
27 December 2013.
4. Lextrait, Vincent (January 2010)."The Programming Languages Beacon, v10.0"(https://archive.is/20120530/http://w
ww.lextrait.com/Vincent/implementations.html). Archived from the original (http://www.lextrait.com/Vincent/implement
ations.html) on 30 May 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2010.
5. Hachamovitch, Dean (2007-12-14),Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A Milestone(http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/200
7/12/19/internet-explorer-8-and-acid2-a-milestone.aspx)
, Microsoft
6. "Blink: A rendering engine for the Chromium project"(http://blog.chromium.org/2013/04/blink-rendering-engine-for-ch
romium.html). Retrieved 30 August 2013.
7. "Firefox — Notes (58.0.2) — Mozilla"(https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/58.0.2/releasenotes/). mozilla.org.
Mozilla Foundation. February 7, 2018.
8. "Firefox Extended Support Release — Notes (52.6.0) — Mozilla"(https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/52.6.0/releas
enotes/). mozilla.org. Mozilla Foundation. January 23, 2018.
9. "Goanna" (http://moonchildproductions.info/goanna.shtml)
. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
10. "27.0.0 (2016-11-22)" (http://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml). Retrieved 5 January 2017.
11. The iCab 4 browser uses theWebKit engine - iCab 3.0.5 was the final release of theCarbon (API)-based iCab
engine "iCab 4 Abandons Support for the Classic Mac OS"(http://lowendmac.com/thomas/08tt/icab-drops-classic-m
ac-os.html). Retrieved 2009-04-30.
12. From Access website (http://www.access-company.com/support/netfront_support.html)(2010/06/19): "Access no
longer offers nor supports NetFront Browserfor Symbian."
13. The Servo Project. "README.md" (https://github.com/servo/servo/blob/master/README.md)
. Github web
repository. Retrieved 2016-04-24.
14. Through the use of theWine Libraries some version of IE can be started."Beta - IEs4Linux" (http://www.tatanka.com.
br/ies4linux/page/Beta). Tatanka.com.br. Retrieved 2008-10-17.
15. XEP is written in Java, with a dedicated release line for Windows.

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