Ardia vs Safari

We make Yab, the third column.facts checked Oct 9 ↓

Ardia is a free, open-source Chromium browser for the Mac that pairs Arc’s sidebar with Dia’s look: pinned tabs, profiles you swipe between, Split View, the Chrome Web Store and uBlock Origin built in.

Safari is Apple’s browser for Mac, iPhone and iPad, on WebKit, with Apple Intelligence for summaries and tab topics. Safari 27 also lets outside agents like Claude Code drive it over MCP.

The short answer

Pick Ardia

if you want Arc’s sidebar on Chromium, free and open source
if you want Chrome extensions and uBlock Origin built in
if you don’t want AI in your browser

Pick Safari

if you use a Mac and an iPhone and want your tabs and passwords on both
if you want AI that runs on your Mac or on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute
if you build sites and want Claude Code or Codex to test them in WebKit

Or Yabours

if you miss Arc and want spaces, pins and folders kept, on a Mac
if you already pay for Claude or ChatGPT and want it to work in your signed-in tabs
if you want Claude Code, Codex or Cursor to drive a real browser over MCP

At a glance

Ardia and Safari, with Yab beside them for a Mac.

Ardia vs Safari
What	Ardia	Safari	Yab
Made by	Mantra (open-source project)	Apple	Serafim Korablev
Status	Updated	Updated	Updated
Runs on	Mac	Mac and iPhone	Mac
Phone app	None; Mac only	Built into iPhone and iPad; syncs tabs, bookmarks, history and passwords via iCloud	Yab for iPhone (TestFlight) and Yab for Android, both in beta; they sync spaces, tabs, bookmarks, history and chats
Price	Free and open source	Free with macOS; Apple Intelligence is free on Macs with M1 or later	Free; its AI runs on your own Claude or ChatGPT plan
AI	No AI	Chat about pages, on its own AI service	An agent that works in pages, on your Claude or ChatGPT plan
Driven by outside agents	No	MCP	MCP and a command line
Engine	Chromium	WebKit	WebKit
Tabs down the side	Yes	No	Yes
Spaces	Yes	Yes	Yes
Split View	Yes	No	Yes
Extensions	Chrome Web Store	Safari’s, from the App Store	Chrome Web Store
Ad blocker	Built in	No	Built in
Open source	Yes	No	No

Checked October 9, 2026 on each maker’s own pages, linked under Sources. Prices are per month, in US dollars.

Where they differ

What separates them, area by area. Where one plainly has more, it says who; where it comes down to taste, it says so.

AISafari leads

Safari has AI built in; Ardia has less of it. Ardia has no AI of its own. Apple Intelligence sums up pages, sorts tabs into topics and watches a page for price drops, and the Passwords app can change weak passwords for you; no agent that works through sites.

Agents like Claude Code and CodexSafari leads

Ardia has no MCP server or command line for outside agents. Safari can be driven over MCP, through safaridriver --mcp in Safari 27, once you allow remote automation and outside agents.

Tabs and windowsArdia leads

Ardia has tabs down the side, spaces, Split View, folders in the sidebar and tabs that sleep. Safari has spaces.

PriceSafari leads

Ardia: Free and open source. Safari: Free with macOS; Apple Intelligence is free on Macs with M1 or later.

Where it runsSafari leads

Ardia runs on Mac. Safari runs on Mac and iPhone. On a Mac, Ardia needs macOS 14 or later and Safari needs macOS 15 or later. Ardia has no phone app: Mac only. On the phone, Safari: built into iPhone and iPad; syncs tabs, bookmarks, history and passwords via iCloud.

Engine and extensionsa matter of taste

Ardia is built on Chromium, as Chrome is; Safari on WebKit, the engine Safari uses. Ardia takes extensions from the Chrome Web Store, Safari from the App Store, as Safari extensions.

PrivacyArdia leads

Ardia has an ad blocker built in and open code. Ardia syncs end to end encrypted through a folder in your own iCloud Drive, with no server of its maker in between; crash reports are opt-in. Safari has no ad blocker of its own. Apple Intelligence runs on the Mac or on Private Cloud Compute, which Apple says doesn’t store what you ask or make it accessible to Apple.

What their pages don’t lead with

Real limits, from the makers’ own words and our own use.

Ardia

Mac only, Apple Silicon, macOS 14 or later
New: first public in 2026, from a small open-source team
No phone app
No AI of its own

Safari

Apple devices only
Tabs only across the top, and no Split View of two tabs
Extensions only from the App Store, in Safari’s format
Its AI needs a Mac with M1 or later and macOS 27

Yab, honestly

Mac only on the desktop: macOS 15.4 or later, no Windows; the iPhone and Android apps are in beta
New: first released in September 2026
Its AI needs a Claude or ChatGPT plan; ChatGPT’s free plan may work with low limits
WebKit by default, as in Safari; Chrome’s engine is a choice in beta (Nightly) for sites made only for Chrome
Closed source

What changed lately

October 27, 2026Ardia: 0.2.42 released, with a nightly channel beside it
September 17, 2026Safari: Apple documented Safari 27’s MCP server for outside AI agents
September 14, 2026Safari: Safari 27 shipped with AI tab topics, Notify Me and Describe an Extension

Questions

Is Ardia free?

Yes. Free and open source.

Is Safari free?

Yes. Free with macOS; Apple Intelligence is free on Macs with M1 or later.

Which has an AI agent, Ardia or Safari?

Neither has an agent that does tasks in your pages. Ardia has no AI of its own. Apple Intelligence sums up pages, sorts tabs into topics and watches a page for price drops, and the Passwords app can change weak passwords for you; no agent that works through sites.

Which runs on Windows, Ardia or Safari?

Neither. Ardia runs on Mac; Safari on Mac and iPhone.

Do Ardia and Safari have phone apps?

Safari does. Ardia has no phone app: Mac only. On the phone, Safari: built into iPhone and iPad; syncs tabs, bookmarks, history and passwords via iCloud.

Can I move from Safari to Ardia?

Yes: Ardia’s own help says it brings in from Safari.

Is there a third option on a Mac?

Yab, Yet Another Browser, is free for the Mac: tabs down the side with spaces, folders and Split View, as in Ardia; an agent that works in your signed-in tabs, on the Claude or ChatGPT plan you already pay for. Claude Code, Codex and any MCP client can drive it too. It runs on WebKit, the engine Safari uses, with Chrome’s engine as a choice in beta, and takes Chrome extensions. It is new, and its iPhone and Android apps are in beta.

More comparisons

Ardia vs Arc Ardia vs Vivaldi Ardia vs Zen Ardia vs Orion Ardia vs Chrome Ardia vs Edge Ardia vs Firefox Ardia alternatives Yab vs Ardia Safari vs Chrome Edge vs Safari Firefox vs Safari Brave vs Safari Opera vs Safari Arc vs Safari Dia vs Safari Safari alternatives Yab vs Safari

Sources. Read October 9, 2026. Something out of date? Write to hello@serafimlabs.io and we fix it.

Yab, Yet Another Browser.

Free for the Mac. Arc’s sidebar, your own Claude or ChatGPT as the agent, Chrome extensions on WebKit.

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