Yalqen vs Orion on Mac: Chromium or WebKit?

The short answer

Which one fits you?

Chromium engine, the same as Chrome, so sites built for Chrome behave the same and the full Chromium DevTools are built in. Orion renders pages the way Safari does.
Open source under the MIT license. Kagi has opened some of Orion’s components, but the browser itself is closed source.
A keyboard-first command bar on ⌘L that searches, jumps to tabs and history, and runs commands by name.
Developer tools built in: phone view with device presets, network throttling, request rules, user-agent switching and screenshots.

Orion runs on iPhone and iPad as well as the Mac, with Linux in beta and Windows in development. Yalqen is macOS 13+ on Apple silicon only.
WebKit is native to macOS and usually lighter on memory and battery than a Chromium browser built on Electron, which is what Yalqen is today.
Orion installs both Chrome and Firefox extensions. Yalqen supports Chrome extensions, with limits.
Orion syncs between devices. Yalqen has no sync yet.

Side by side

YesPartly, or off by defaultNoDefault settings · Last checked November 2026
The basics
	Yalqen	Orion
Source code	Open source (MIT)	Mostly closed, some components open
Engine	Chromium, through Electron	WebKit
Platforms	macOS 13+ on Apple silicon	macOS, iOS, iPadOS; Linux in beta
Price	Free	Free, optional Orion+ subscription
Privacy by default
Blocks ads
Blocks trackers
No usage analytics
Works without an account
Features
Vertical tabs
Command bar with developer commands
Renders pages like Chrome
Chrome Web Store extensions
Firefox add-ons
Sync between devices
iPhone and iPad