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Why We Built Lightpanda in Zig
Because We're Not Smart Enough for C++ or Rust
Francis Bouvier Cofounder & CEO IconX IconLinkedin
zig architecture performance rust C++ memory allocators Friday, December 5, 2025
To be honest, when I began working on Lightpanda, I chose Zig because I’m not smart enough to build a big project in C++ or Rust.
I like simple languages. I like Zig for the same reasons I like Go, C, and the KISS principle. Not just because I believe in this philosophy, but because I’m not capable of handling complicated abstractions at scale.
Before Lightpanda, I was doing a lot of Go. But building a web browser from scratch requires a low-level systems programming language to ensure great performance, so Go wasn’t an option. And for a project like this, I wanted more safety and modern tooling than C.
Why We Built Lightpanda in Zig
Our requirements were performance, simplicity, and modern tooling. Zig seemed like the perfect balance: simpler than C++ and Rust, top-tier performance, and better tooling and safety than C.
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