# litehtml/litehtml

Fast and lightweight HTML/CSS rendering engine

Repository: https://github.com/litehtml/litehtml
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/litehtml
Homepage: http://www.litehtml.com/
Language: C++
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: html, rendering-engine, gumbo-parser, css-properties, gumbo, css-standards, litehtml, css, html-renderer
Last push: 2026-08-22T17:44:17+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 84/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 56, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4392, "days_push": 11, "days_rel": 81, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2430, forks 300 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:51.042705+00:00)

## What it is
litehtml is a lightweight C++ HTML/CSS rendering engine that parses HTML (via gumbo-parser) and computes element layout with CSS2/CSS3 support. It draws nothing itself; developers implement a simple document_container callback interface using any graphics/font library.

## Use cases
- render html-formatted text in a desktop application
- show html tooltips without embedding webkit
- build a lightweight mini-browser
- layout html emails for display
- embed html rendering in a c++ gui app
- render bootstrap-styled html pages in a custom viewer

## When to choose
- you need to display simple HTML/CSS content in a C++ application without the weight of WebKit
- you want full control over drawing via your own graphics/font libraries
- you need a portable engine that only depends on the STL
- your content uses common HTML tags and CSS properties rather than cutting-edge web standards

## When to avoid
- you need full, standards-compliant rendering of modern complex websites
- you need JavaScript execution or dynamic web app support
- you are not working in C++ or cannot implement the document_container interface
- you need a complete out-of-the-box browser rather than a layout engine

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: parser, graphics, gui
- domain: web-development, frontend, developer-tools
- platform: cpp, cross-platform, windows
- tags: html-rendering, css-layout, html5-parser, gumbo-parser, lightweight, embeddable, utf-8, mini-browser, linux

## Member repositories
- litehtml/litehtml (main) score 84

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:51.042705+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:31:26.602880+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/litehtml/litehtml (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:51.042705+00:00, sha e6f6a1600f86)
  - homepage: http://www.litehtml.com/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:12:43.297745+00:00, sha ed697496d30b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.