I wanted Safari’s performance with Chrome’s extensions, and Orion gave me both

Published Sep 11, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT Patrick is a seasoned writer with more than a decade of experience, specializing in any and all things tech. His work has been featured on platforms like CNET, Yahoo, Xfinity, and many other outlets. When not typing away, he can be found with his nose in a book. I've made no secret of my issues with Chrome. As feature-rich as the browser is, it's an absolute hog on system resources. Opening six tabs shouldn't demand as much RAM as it does, and that strain becomes increasingly apparent on older hardware. Yet in spite of these complaints, I haven't made the jump to Safari because it lacks the robust extension collection that Chrome has, and I can't imagine browsing the web without my favorite suite of tools. That's when I discovered Orion. This macOS-focused browser has all the efficiency of Safari while boasting the exact extension library as Chrome (with all of Firefox's extensions thrown in, too). Orion is built on Apple's native WebKit instead of Chromium, so it feels like Safari in every way that matters. Orion has access to more extensions than Chrome My favorite extensions work surprisingly well One of Orion's most interesting features is its access (and compatibility with) both the Chrome Web Store and the full collection of Firefox add-ons. In its early days, the browser caught a lot of flak for claiming to support all of these, but users reported that many extensions simply didn't work. That was several years ago, and now Kagi — the developers behind Orion — say that the WebKit API offers roughly 70% extension compatibility. As Kagi points out, that's a Herculean effort. Many of these extensions were coded to work on Chromium, not WebKit, so the fact that the team has ported so many by hand is a testament to the work they've put into this browser. After testing it for a while, I'm impressed. While there are some extensions that don't work, I haven't personally run into any. The extensions I use, like Proton Pass, uBlock Origin, and Bonjourr, all work seamlessly. That said, there are some extensions that will just be incompatible. If the extension centers on an API that's no longer maintained or supported, the only way to get it to work would be rebuilding it from the ground up. Its day-to-day use feels like Safari The browser is fast, responsive, and familiar Orion looks like Safari, but given their shared DNA, that makes sense. More importantly, however, is that it performs like Safari. Web pages are snappier, navigation feels smoother, and switching between tabs is instant. That's a far cry from the performance I receive on Chrome, where switching between tabs can take a second or more if I have too many open at once. That's not to say Orion is faster than Safari. I've compared the two under similar conditions, but I couldn't tell enough of a difference between them to decide a winner. Its performance is at least as fast as Safari, which means Orion meets the main reason I considered switching browsers in the first place: speed. Orion has nearly everything I need in a browser I don't need total feature parity Orion might not be well known, but it combines Safari's speed and responsiveness with the extension support I want from Chrome. While it might not support everything, the plugins I rely on most all work as I expect. I suspect that the majority of popular plugins have full or near-full support, while the extensions that don't work as well are likely more niche. It might take longer before those receive support in Orion. Here's the thing: while it doesn't match Chrome feature-for-feature, Orion is close enough that it meets all my needs (aside from a few that are software-specific and outside a browser developer's control). And it doesn't feel like a copy of Chrome, either. Orion feels more like Safari or Opera than Chrome, but distinct enough to feel like its own experience. The bad news: Orion has limited availability The only stable release is for Apple devices While Orion is quite impressive, it's currently only fully available for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. There's a public beta available for Linux, and the Windows version is under active development and planned for an initial launch in late 2026. That would mean sometime within the next three months, so not too terribly long a wait. But if you want to use it before then, you'll need to access it through one of its supported platforms. That said, some users report bugs and crashes even on the stable release. I haven't encountered any yet, but as with any relatively young software, a few obstacles are expected. It's time for the browser monopoly to end There are more browser options than ever before, but so many essential tools — especially for independent creatives and freelancers — lean on a Chromium base to function, which means only Chrome and a handful of other browsers are fully compatible. That's one of the reasons I keep using Chrome, but Orion has had a constant spot on my toolbar since I discovered it, and I find myself growing more and more fond of the browser. Orion Orion is a WebKit-based browser that supports both Chrome extensions and Firefox add-ons.