I built a small browser engine from scratch in C++
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Hi HN! Korean high school senior here, about to start CS in college.I built a browser engine from scratch in C++ to understand how browsers work. First time using C++, 8 weeks of development, lots of debugging—but it works!Features:- HTML parsing with error correction- CSS cascade and inheritance- Block/inline layout engine- Async image loading + caching- Link navigation + historyHardest parts:- String parsing(html, css)- Rendering- Image Caching & Layout ReflowingWhat I learned (beyond code):- Systematic debugging is crucial- Ship with known bugs rather than chase perfection- The Power of "Why?"~3,000 lines of C++17/Qt6. Would love feedback on code architecture and C++ best practices!GitHub: https://github.com/beginner-jhj/mini_browser
HN · launched Jan 28, 2026 · 146 upvotes (top 6%) · 1 view
Niche: specialized and developer web browsers · 83 launches, 9 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 83 launches in specialized and developer web browsers →
Could you build this?
No Writing a browser engine from scratch in C++ requires implementing complex spec-compliant HTML/CSS parsers, layout trees, and rendering pipelines.
What it would actually take: Requires C++ alongside low-level graphics backends (such as Skia or direct OS windowing APIs). The engine demands writing tokenizers, DOM tree constructors with error correction, CSS specificity/inheritance cascades, box model reflow algorithms, and a rasterization engine from spec documentation.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: FastRender (Cursor), Ladybird browser, one-agent-one-browser, HiWave, emsh's Rust browser project
Concerns raised: Only toy implementation, not full browser engine, HTML parsing far more complex than implementation, Rendering and network outsourced to Qt, JavaScript not supported, Limited CSS property support with imperfect implementation
Feature requests: JavaScript support, More complete CSS property coverage
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 610 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #46 of 611 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 86 days after the earliest competitor.
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