Chromium vs Comby
Chromium
chromium.orgComby
comby.devSide by side
| Figure | Chromium | Comby |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 0 |
| Spec score · Code Search Tools | 8.1 (#5) | 7.7 (#15) |
| License | Google released the Chromium source code under a permissive BSD license. | The public comby-tools/comby GitHub repository identifies its license as Apache-2.0. |
| Support | The project directs developers who need help to the chromium-dev Google Group or IRC channel and says these are not support channels for Chrome itself. | The help page directs users to the Gitter channel for usage questions and pattern-writing help, and to GitHub issues for installation problems. |
In their own words
Chromium
Chromium is a free, open-source browser project and codebase for developers who build, study, and contribute to it. The project publishes source code, design and architecture documents, testing information, and contribution guidance. It develops the V8 JavaScript engine and Blink rendering engine. Its documented security approach includes sandboxing, Safe Browsing, defense in depth, and safe defaults, with a security team reviewing architecture and helping address bugs. Chromium source code is released under a permissive BSD license, and Google uses the project as the basis for Google Chrome. Build instructions cover Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android; download archives list Mac, Windows, Linux, and ChromiumOS. Builds are supplied on a best-effort basis from arbitrary revisions, may differ from user-facing Chrome releases, do not auto-update, and do not include symbols. Site Isolation can increase memory use and has stated Android limitations.
Comby
Comby is a free, open-source tool for searching and changing code structure with lightweight templates. It recognizes basic syntax in code, strings, and comments across many languages, with parsers listed for C/C++, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Rust, Swift, and TypeScript, plus a generic matcher for other formats. The project targets large refactors and one-off changes, and an interactive review mode lets users inspect proposed edits. Comby can run from its command line, Python bindings, or HTTP requests sent to a server on your machine. Installation instructions cover macOS with Homebrew, Ubuntu, Windows through Ubuntu on WSL, and Docker; building from source is also described. Linked projects include an Emacs package and a prototype VS Code extension. Other uses include structural code search, compiler fuzzing, test-case reduction, editor find and replace, and academic research. Comby matches balanced delimiters while accounting for comments and string literals, and supports regex search. It is self-hosted and available for API, Linux, macOS, and Windows use. The Apache-2.0 license is identified in the public repository.