Lilo

Your internet, in bloom.

Light on your Mac, quick on the web, private by default. Free and open source.

Website ·
Discord ·
Install ·
Build from source ·
Documentation ·
Contributing

Lilo is a Mac browser for people who live in a sidebar, and it is not another Chromium fork. It is
native Swift and AppKit on the WebKit engine already in macOS, and it still runs the Chrome
extensions you rely on. It puts terminal tabs beside your pages, and lets the AI agents you already
use drive it over a built-in MCP server, in a Space of their own. Free, MIT licensed, no account. If
you are leaving Arc, it imports your Spaces, pinned tabs and folders in a few clicks.

Status: public beta. Lilo is usable every day, but it is still a beta: expect rough edges and
an interface that still moves, and please report what breaks.
ROADMAP.md lists priorities and non-goals.

Join the Discord community to share feedback and get help with Lilo.

Why Lilo

Most Arc alternatives are Chromium with a new sidebar. Lilo keeps the sidebar and changes the rest.

• Not Chromium. No bundled browser engine, no Electron: Swift, AppKit and the system WebKit,
  with the sidebar and settings in Svelte. Lower memory use, a battery that lasts the day, and
  Apple's security updates with every macOS release.
• Private by default. No account, no telemetry, no analytics, no server: nothing you do is
  sent to the project. Ads and trackers are blocked out of the box, cross-site tracking is blocked
  as in Safari, and Global Privacy Control is on (macOS 27). Every request Lilo makes on its own is
  listed, with how to turn it off.
• Chrome extensions anyway. Leaving Chromium usually means leaving its extensions. In Lilo,
  Chrome Web Store extensions install with one click on "Add to Lilo", on WebKit's native runtime
  (COMPATIBILITY.md).
• Your agents drive it, it has no AI of its own. No chatbot bolted on: the agents you already
  run (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or any MCP client) use a real browser through the built-in MCP
  server, in their own Space and throwaway profile, and ask you before they send, pay or delete.
• A terminal beside your pages. Ghostty-based terminal tabs live in the sidebar with your sites,
  showing the branch and pending changes of their repository.
• Yours. MIT licensed. The whole interface is a Svelte layer over WebKit that you can change
  and rebuild in seconds.

Features

Browsing

• Spaces and profiles: Spaces with an emoji and a color, each signed in as its own profile;
  swipe between them. Private Spaces forget everything when they close.
• Sidebar: pinned tabs, favorites, folders nested up to five levels (lockable), drag to
  reorder, audio and now-playing controls.
• Command bar (Cmd+T): tabs, history, bookmarks, Spaces and every action in one field,
  ranked by what you use.
• Recent tabs (Ctrl+Tab): switch through your last tabs, from every Space, in the order you
  used them.
• Peek: a link from a pinned tab to another site, or any Shift-clicked link, opens over the
  page.
• Little window (Cmd+Option+N, from any app): a small window for one link or search, sent to
  a Space when it turns into something.
• Tabs that tidy themselves: unpinned tabs you stop using are archived after a delay you choose
  per Space; Cmd+Shift+K clears them, and the archive is one keystroke away.
• Link rules: links opened from other apps go to the Space or the Little window a rule picks.
• Split view: up to four tabs side by side, restored on relaunch.
• Shortcuts: every shortcut can be remapped, starting from the Lilo or Arc preset.
• Import: bookmarks, open tabs and Spaces, history, cookies and extensions from Safari,
  Firefox, Zen and Chromium browsers (Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, Dia, Comet,
  Chromium), read straight from your Mac.

Extensions and the web

• Chrome extensions: Manifest V3 through WebKit's native extension runtime, plus small Swift
  handlers for the APIs WebKit lacks (COMPATIBILITY.md).
• Password managers: setup offers the one you use (1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, KeePassXC,
  NordPass, Proton Pass).
• Streaming: protected video and music through FairPlay; YouTube in 4K HDR.
• Content blocking: EasyList, EasyPrivacy and uBlock Origin lists, kept up to date, with
  cosmetic filtering and scriptlets.
• Screenshots: a capture floats as a card over the page, ready to edit with markup, save or
  dismiss.
• And more: reader mode, Picture-in-Picture (calls float in an always-on-top panel), page
  translation, Web Serial, AppleScript, Shortcuts actions and a Focus filter.

For people who build

• Terminal tabs: libghostty-vt terminals on a Metal renderer, beside your pages
  (Cmd+D beside, Cmd+Shift+D below), with the branch and pending changes in the sidebar.
• Changes view: every diff of the repository, images included.
• Stays awake while it works: a long command keeps the Mac awake, even with the lid closed,
  then lets it sleep.
• Agents over MCP: the built-in MCP server, see For AI agents.

For AI agents

Lilo has a built-in MCP server. Turn it on, and the agents you already run (Claude Code, Claude
Desktop, Codex, Cursor or any MCP client) drive a real WebKit browser beside you. Lilo ships no AI
of its own.

• Their own Space. Agents open their tabs in a folder of the Agents Space, in a throwaway
  profile wiped after each session. They never take your keyboard, your mouse or your tabs, and
  never see a private Space. An agent can borrow one of your profiles once you allow it.
• You say yes first. Lilo asks before an agent sends, pays, deletes or publishes (Allow Once,
  Always Allow on the site, or Deny), and before it hands a page one of your files. Each client is
  approved once, tied to the program behind it rather than the name it gives.
• One click to connect. In Settings > AI agents, turn on "Let AI agents use Lilo", then press
  Connect next to Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex or Cursor: Lilo adds itself to that client's
  MCP servers. Any other client copies the configuration from "Other agents".

Then ask your agent something like:

Open localhost:3000/checkout in Lilo, pay with the test card and find out why the order fails.
Check the console and the network.

The tools cover:

• Tabs and navigation in the agent's folder, and isolated tabs that share no cookie or sign-in.
• Input: click, type, keys, scroll, drag, form filling, file and image uploads.
• Page reading: the accessibility tree with element refs, text search, the page text.
• Screenshots of a full page or one element, and GIF recordings.
• Console and network: messages, requests with their full responses, HAR export, cookies.
• Network mocks and emulation: mocked, failed or delayed requests; user agent, color scheme,
  reduced motion, print media, extra headers, init scripts; viewport size.
• Performance: load and paint metrics, memory, and timeline profiles.
• Web Inspector: WebKit's own inspector protocol, commands and events.
• Scripting: JavaScript in the page, fetch from a tab with its cookies, and run or
  browser_batch to chain many calls in one round trip.
• Profiles: list them, borrow one after you allow it, or reset the throwaway one.

docs/AI-AGENTS.md has the details: what is asked, what is not, and the errors
that need you.

Install

Either:

• download the DMG from Releases, or

• install with Homebrew:

  brew install --cask alexays/tap/lilo
  

Lilo updates itself through signed Sparkle updates.

Requirements

• macOS 26 or later. Global Privacy Control needs macOS 27.

Build from source

With Xcode 27 and Node.js 22.6+ installed (full prerequisites):

git clone https://github.com/Alexays/Lilo.git && cd Lilo
make bootstrap                  # checks the prerequisites and fetches or builds what the app needs
make install                    # Release build into /Applications, replacing an installed copy
open /Applications/Lilo.app

make bootstrap names anything missing and how to install it. To work on the interface alone,
Node.js is enough: make ui-preview opens it in your browser with hot reload
(CONTRIBUTING.md).

No Apple Developer account is needed. Source builds are ad-hoc signed by default;
CONTRIBUTING.md explains the trade-offs and how to sign with a free
Apple ID.

Documentation

• docs/: architecture, debugging, localization, releasing, AI agents
• COMPATIBILITY.md: what still differs from Chrome for extensions and sites
• PRIVACY.md: every request Lilo makes on its own
• ROADMAP.md: what is shipped, what is next, and the non-goals

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md covers setup, the development
workflow and the pull request checklist. Questions go to
Discussions (SUPPORT.md), and
vulnerabilities are reported privately (SECURITY.md). Everyone taking part follows
the Code of Conduct.

License

MIT, see LICENSE. Bundled third-party components are listed in
THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.