SigmaOS vs Opera

SigmaOS is a more unique productivity browser in the space.

SigmaOS tried to re-think how a browser layout should be, and build in layers of productivity along the way (not too dissimilar to that of Arc Browser).

The thing is, Sigma has quite minimal funding, and in the browser space, you're competing with companies that have billions of dollars to throw at improving the browser (Google Chrome, Edge, Safari), so when comparing it to those, it's tough to see how they'll manage to compete.

That said, even just comparing SigmaOS to that of Arc, Arc has raised over $100M to take on this incredibly competitive space, whereas SigmaOS is trying to fight having raised likely less than $2M. It's also tough to understand if people are actually willing to pay for a browser, and at $20/mo on the paid tiers for SigmaOS, it just feels like Arc is the more likely winner here.

SigmaOS does make some pretty different opinionated design decisions though, it's worth a shot checking out if you want to try something fresh and new, though not sure we'd bet on it ultimately taking up any meaningful browser marketshare.

Opera has managed to stay about as relevant in the browser space as Firefox, which is just a tad bit behind that of Microsoft Edge.

Interestingly enough, unlike most other major browsers on the market, Opera is actually a publicly traded company with about a $1B market cap. This is particularly interesting because it means that they need to focus on growing revenue as they have investors.

In their attempt to stay relevant, they have copied many features from the more modern browsers on the market like Arc Browser (e.g. Spaces and Folders).

You can tell Arc has been influencing the browser market. They expanded the idea of browser profiles into Spaces, and now Opera has copied the concept with Workspaces. The switching animation is slick and you can create as many workspaces as you'd like, but they all share the same cookies and cache, so you cannot fully separate environments like personal and work accounts. That separation is the key difference between Arc's Spaces and Opera's Workspaces.

You can create groups of tabs in the top if you want similar sites to be together for easy expanding/collapsing. If you open up 2 or more of the sam site, it'll automatically create a tab group for that site.

Opera has been called out a bit lately for being owned by a Chinese company, and for making most of its revenue from Ads, meaning they very well are tracking, storing, and selling details about how you're using the browser.

While tempting and seemingly impressive, there's just something in the heavy influencer marketing push and security concerns that make us have a bit of pause in actually using Opera as our daily driver.