Developers of a free web-browser developed from scratch Ladybird announced receiving a donation of $1 million from Chris Wansstrath, the co-founder of Github.
Previously, the LadyBird browser was a component of Serenityos, a project aimed at developing a Unix-like operating system from the ground up. The project was founded by Andreas Kling, a former Nokia employee involved in Safari development. In June 2024, Kling decided to separate the browser project from the operating system project and focus entirely on its development.
Vanstratt and Kling are now managing the development of the Ladybird browser under the non-profit (501c3) Ladybird Browser Initiative Foundation. The project relies on private donations to fund its development, ensuring that donors do not have control over the project. The foundation has strict guidelines against participating in sponsorship transactions that could compromise the project’s independence.
The development team currently consists of four members, including Kling. Plans are in place to hire three more team members in the future. The browser is being developed for Linux and MacOS, with no immediate plans for a Windows version. The first alpha version is scheduled for release in 2026.
The Ladybird browser utilizes its own engine libweb, JavaScript interpreter libjs, text and 2D graphics library libgfx, regular expression library libregex, XML Parser libxml, WEBASSEMBLY intermediate code library libwasm, unicode library libunicode, and text encoding conversion library