---
title: "Anchor alternatives"
description: "The main Anchor alternatives are Browser Use Cloud, Kernel, Browserbase, Browserless, Steel and Hyperbrowser. On Stealth Bench V2 (100 bot-protected sites, picked where Browser Use Cloud historically got through and stock Chrome did not), Browser Use Cloud got through on 90.5% of visits vs Anchor 82%, at $0.02 per browser-hour vs $0.05 plus $0.01 per browser created. Anchor's draw is managed logins: it keeps agents signed in to third-party apps."
canonical: "https://browser-use.com/alternatives/anchor"
last_updated: "2026-11-04"
---

# Anchor alternatives

> The main Anchor alternatives are Browser Use Cloud, Kernel, Browserbase, Browserless, Steel and Hyperbrowser. On Stealth Bench V2 (100 bot-protected sites, picked where Browser Use Cloud historically got through and stock Chrome did not), Browser Use Cloud got through on 90.5% of visits vs Anchor 82%, at $0.02 per browser-hour vs $0.05 plus $0.01 per browser created. Anchor's draw is managed logins: it keeps agents signed in to third-party apps.

[HTML page](https://browser-use.com/alternatives/anchor) · [Stealth benchmark](https://browser-use.com/benchmarks/browsers) · [Pricing](https://browser-use.com/pricing.md)

## Stealth, price and speed, side by side

| Provider | Got through (Stealth Bench V2) | Price per browser-hour | Session lifecycle (BrowserArena) | Lifecycle score (ComputeSDK) |
|---|---:|---|---:|---:|
| Browser Use Cloud | 90.5% | $0.02 | 386 ms | 97.0 |
| Anchor | 82% | $0.05 | 2,960 ms | Not tested |
| Kernel | 80.5% | $0.06 to $0.48 | 366 ms | 97.7 |
| Browserbase | 78.5% | $0.10 to $0.12 | 662 ms | 95.0 |
| Browserless | 77.5% | $0.18 to $0.24 | No result | Not tested |
| Steel | 74.5% | $0.08 to $0.10 | 1,462 ms | 84.8 |
| Hyperbrowser | 73.5% | $0.10 | 1,005 ms | 94.3 |

- Got through: share of 200 visits (100 bot-protected sites, 2 runs) where a judge model, shown the page without the provider name, confirmed the real site loaded within 60 seconds. Measured September 25, 2026. Every provider ran with its own proxy and CAPTCHA solver, and the stealth setting its standard plans offer (Steel's have none); Browserbase ran on its standard mode, because its Verified mode needs an Enterprise plan. Anchor ran with its residential proxy, CAPTCHA solver and [Extra Stealth](https://docs.anchorbrowser.io/essentials/stealth) on; Extra Stealth needs its Growth ($2,000/month) plan ([benchmark config](https://github.com/browser-use/benchmark/blob/74b427184d84b0df391a9c337def5aadf115a893/browsers/anchor.py)). The sites were picked because Browser Use Cloud historically got through where stock Chrome with a US proxy did not, so they are hard on purpose and not a balanced sample of the web or of anti-bot vendors. An independent rerun put Anchor at 85% and Browser Use Cloud at 90%. [Method, code and raw results](https://browser-use.com/benchmarks/browsers)
- Prices, checked October 24, 2026, from each provider's public page:
  - Browser Use Cloud: pay as you go, billed by the minute, no subscription; residential proxies $5/GB. [Pricing](https://browser-use.com/pricing.md)
  - Anchor: plus $0.01 per browser created; full stealth from the $2,000/month Growth plan; residential proxies $8/GB; plans: free credits, then $50 or $2,000/month; saved automation tasks $0.10 per run, or the session's browser, proxy and AI-step cost if that is higher. Rechecked November 4, 2026. [Source](https://docs.anchorbrowser.io/pricing)
  - Kernel: headless to headful, billed per second; plans $0 to $200/month. [Source](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/info/pricing)
  - Browserbase: after 100 or 500 hours included in $20 or $99/month plans; residential proxies $10 to $12/GB. [Source](https://www.browserbase.com/pricing)
  - Browserless: overage, billed in 30-second units; plans $25 to $350/month. [Source](https://www.browserless.io/pricing)
  - Steel: $0.08 on the $250/month Scale plan; stealth browser on Enterprise. [Source](https://steel.dev/pricing)
  - Hyperbrowser: billed in credits; plans $0 to $100/month, Free includes 5,000 credits. [Source](https://www.hyperbrowser.ai/pricing)
- Session lifecycle: sum of the median times to create a session, connect over CDP, load a page and release it, over 200 sequential runs after 20 warm-ups, BrowserArena run of October 26, 2026. Browserbase: tested in us-west-2 from a us-east-1 runner. Browserless: all 200 runs failed to connect (401), so there is no number. [BrowserArena](https://www.browserarena.ai/?percentile=median&sort=latency&date=2026-10-26)
- Lifecycle score: ComputeSDK composite of median and tail total latency plus create latency, times success rate, run of October 23, 2026. Higher is better. [ComputeSDK](https://www.computesdk.com/benchmarks/browsers/lifecycle)

## When to pick which

- **Browser Use Cloud**: most sites let you in, lowest price per hour, no subscription. Also a [hosted agent](https://browser-use.com/web-agents.md) when you want the task done, not just a browser. The [browser-use](https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use) agent library is open source (MIT).
- **Anchor**: your agents sign in to third-party apps. Its [managed authentication](https://docs.anchorbrowser.io/essentials/managed-authentication) stores an identity and signs in again before each session, with email OTP, TOTP, 1Password and custom MFA, from the Starter ($50/month) plan. Second on Stealth Bench V2 at 82%, with [Extra Stealth](https://docs.anchorbrowser.io/essentials/stealth) on its Growth ($2,000/month) plan.
- **Kernel**: session start time matters most. Fastest of this group on both third-party lifecycle benchmarks.
- **Browserbase**: Stagehand is central to your stack, you run Selenium, or you want Search, Fetch and Functions from the same vendor.
- **Browserless**: you want to self-host with Docker or Kubernetes, or need Firefox and WebKit next to Chrome.
- **Steel**: you want open-source browser infrastructure you can run yourself.
- **Hyperbrowser**: you want scraping and crawl APIs and sandboxes from the same vendor.

## Speed

On BrowserArena's October 26, 2026 run, the session lifecycle (sum of step medians) was 386 ms for Browser Use Cloud and 2,960 ms for Anchor. ComputeSDK has not tested Anchor. Kernel was fastest in this table (366 ms); Tilion, which is not in the stealth benchmark, was fastest on both.

## Can I self-host Anchor?

Anchor runs in your own cloud or on-prem only on its Enterprise plan, per its [pricing page](https://docs.anchorbrowser.io/pricing). Its open-source code is the client side: the [TypeScript SDK](https://github.com/anchorbrowser/AnchorBrowser-SDK-Typescript) (Apache-2.0) and an [MCP server](https://github.com/browsermcp-com/mcp) built on Playwright MCP (Apache-2.0). To run a browser server yourself:

- [steel-browser](https://github.com/steel-dev/steel-browser): Apache-2.0, self-hosted with Docker.
- [kernel-images](https://github.com/kernel/kernel-images): Apache-2.0. Kernel's browser images, run as a Docker container; this is not a self-hosted copy of Kernel's managed service.
- [browserless](https://github.com/browserless/browserless): SSPL-1.0 or a commercial license. Its README says closed-source commercial use needs the commercial license.

Browser Use Cloud is hosted by default. On-prem deployment of browsers and agents is available to enterprise customers [through sales](https://browser-use.com/enterprise#talk-to-sales). The [browser-use](https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use) agent library is MIT and runs on your own Chrome or on Browser Use Cloud.

## Move a Playwright script from Anchor

Both are Chromium over CDP. Swap the `anchorbrowser` SDK for `browser-use-sdk`: `client.browsers.create()` returns a `cdpUrl`, which goes to `connectOverCDP` where you passed `session.data.cdp_url`. Call `client.browsers.stop(id)` where you called `Sessions.deleteSession()`; closing the CDP connection does not stop billing. Anchor identities and profiles stay on Anchor; on Browser Use Cloud, sign in again or [sync a local login into a profile](https://docs.browser-use.com/cloud/guides/profile-sync). The Anchor code follows [its quickstart](https://docs.anchorbrowser.io/quickstart/create-session).

```ts
// Before: Anchor
client.setConfig({ auth: () => process.env.ANCHOR_API_KEY });
const session = await Sessions.createSession();
const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(session.data.cdp_url);
// ...
await Sessions.deleteSession({ path: { session_id: session.data.id } });

// After: Browser Use Cloud
import { BrowserUse } from "browser-use-sdk/v4";
const client = new BrowserUse();
const session = await client.browsers.create();
const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(session.cdpUrl!);
// ...
await client.browsers.stop(session.id); // closing CDP does not stop billing
```

[Remote browser for Playwright](https://browser-use.com/playwright.md)

---

BROWSER USE

- Browser Use Agents: give Browser Use a task and receive completed work. API V4 is current for new integrations.
- Browser Infrastructure: connect your agent or automation to managed browsers through SDK, REST, or CDP. Starts at $0.02/browser-hour.
- Developer tools: Open Source, Browser Harness, SDK, and MCP support the two products above.

[Developer Index](https://browser-use.com/index.md)
[Product Map](https://browser-use.com/llms.txt)
[Full Product Context](https://browser-use.com/llms-full.txt)
[Pricing](https://browser-use.com/pricing.md)
[Cloud Docs](https://docs.browser-use.com/cloud/quickstart)
[Open Source Docs](https://docs.browser-use.com/open-source/introduction)