Comparison
Browserless alternatives, measured.
The main Browserless alternatives are Browser Use Cloud, Anchor, Kernel, Browserbase, Steel and Hyperbrowser. On Stealth Bench V2 (100 bot-protected sites), Browser Use Cloud got through on 90.5% of visits vs Browserless 77.5%, at $0.02 per browser-hour vs $0.18 to $0.24 for Browserless overage.
Browser Use Cloud: 90.5% got through. 8.5 points ahead of Anchor, the next best.
- Browser Use Cloud90.5%
- Anchor82%
- Kernel80.5%
- Browserbase78.5%
- Browserless77.5%
- Steel74.5%
- Hyperbrowser73.5%
Got through · longer is better · scale 0–100%
- 90.5%
- got through on 100 bot-protected sites; Browserless 77.5%
- $0.02 / hour
- pay as you go; Browserless $0.18 to $0.24, overage, billed in 30-second units
- 493 ms
- median session lifecycle on BrowserArena; no Browserless number, every run failed to connect
Stealth, price and speed, side by side.
| Provider | Got through Stealth Bench V2 | Price per browser-hour | Session lifecycle BrowserArena median | Lifecycle score ComputeSDK |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Browser Use Cloud | 90.5% | $0.02 | 493 ms | 95.2 |
| Anchor | 82% | $0.05 | 2,800 ms | Not tested |
| Kernel | 80.5% | $0.06 to $0.48 | 318 ms | 96.4 |
| Browserbase | 78.5% | $0.10 to $0.12 | 877 ms | 92.8 |
| Browserless | 77.5% | $0.18 to $0.24 | No result | Not tested |
| Steel | 74.5% | $0.08 to $0.10 | 3,509 ms | 77.2 |
| Hyperbrowser | 73.5% | $0.10 | 1,417 ms | 94.0 |
Browser Use Cloud
- 90.5%
- $0.02
- 493 ms
- 95.2
Anchor
- 82%
- $0.05
- 2,800 ms
- Not tested
Kernel
- 80.5%
- $0.06 to $0.48
- 318 ms
- 96.4
Browserbase
- 78.5%
- $0.10 to $0.12
- 877 ms
- 92.8
Browserless
- 77.5%
- $0.18 to $0.24
- No result
- Not tested
Steel
- 74.5%
- $0.08 to $0.10
- 3,509 ms
- 77.2
Hyperbrowser
- 73.5%
- $0.10
- 1,417 ms
- 94.0
Moving a Playwright script takes one connect URL.
Open source, and what you can run yourself.
- browser-use, the agent library: MIT. Runs agents on your own Chrome or on Browser Use Cloud. The cloud browsers themselves are a hosted service.
- steel-browser: Apache-2.0, self-hosted with Docker.
- kernel-images: Apache-2.0, runs as a Docker container.
- browserless: SSPL-1.0 or a commercial license. Its README says closed-source commercial use needs the commercial license.
When to pick which
- Browser Use Cloud
- Most sites let you in, lowest price per hour, no subscription. Also a hosted agent when you want the task done, not just a browser. The browser-use agent library is open source (MIT).
- Browserless
- You want to run it on your own hardware with Docker, need Firefox and WebKit next to Chrome, or want one-shot screenshot and PDF endpoints. Long track record: Browserless says 8 years in production and 175M+ Docker pulls.
- Anchor
- Second on Stealth Bench V2 at 82%, with managed logins for agents that sign in to third-party apps.
- 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.
- Steel
- You want open-source browser infrastructure you can run yourself.
- Hyperbrowser
- You want scraping and crawl APIs and sandboxes from the same vendor.
Questions people ask
What are the main Browserless alternatives?
Browser Use Cloud, Anchor, Kernel, Browserbase, Steel and Hyperbrowser. On Stealth Bench V2, 100 sites that block bots, they got through on 90.5%, 82%, 80.5%, 78.5%, 74.5%, 73.5% of visits respectively; Browserless got through on 77.5%.
Is Browser Use Cloud cheaper than Browserless?
Per hour, yes. Browser Use Cloud is $0.02 per browser-hour, pay as you go, billed by the minute, with residential proxies at $5/GB. Browserless is $0.18 to $0.24 per browser-hour: overage, billed in 30-second units; plans $25 to $350/month, with residential proxies at 6 units/MB (residential; a unit costs $0.0015 to $0.0020 on overage), per its pricing page.
Can I self-host Browserless, and is it open source?
Yes, Browserless runs on your own hardware with Docker. Its code is licensed SSPL-1.0 or a commercial license; the README says closed-source commercial use needs the commercial license. Browser Use Cloud is hosted only. The browser-use agent library is MIT and runs on your own Chrome. Steel (Apache-2.0) and Kernel (Apache-2.0) also publish browser images you can run yourself.
Which Browserless alternative starts sessions fastest?
Kernel, of the providers in the table. On BrowserArena's October 14, 2026 run, the median time to create, connect, load and release a session was 318 ms for Kernel and 493 ms for Browser Use Cloud. Tilion, which is not in the stealth benchmark, was fastest on both BrowserArena and ComputeSDK. Browserless has no BrowserArena number: all 100 runs failed to connect (401), so there is no number. ComputeSDK has not tested it.
How do I move Playwright code from Browserless?
Where you passed the Browserless WebSocket URL with your token to connectOverCDP, create a browser with client.browsers.create() and pass its cdpUrl. Stop it with client.browsers.stop(id); closing the CDP connection does not stop billing. Browser Use Cloud is Chromium over CDP, so Firefox and WebKit runs, BrowserQL scripts and the one-shot screenshot and PDF endpoints stay on Browserless; take screenshots in your Playwright script instead.
How was stealth measured, and was it fair to Browserless?
Share of 200 scheduled visits (100 sites × 2 runs) where a judge model, shown the page without the provider name, confirmed the real site loaded within 60 seconds. Every provider ran with its own proxy, stealth mode and CAPTCHA solver on. 17 of Browserless's 200 visits were unresolved and count as not through; had all of them got through, it would be 86%. An independent rerun put Browserless at 83% and Browser Use Cloud at 90%. The 100 sites were picked because Browser Use Cloud historically got through where stock Chrome with a US proxy did not. They are hard on purpose and not a balanced sample of the web or of anti-bot vendors. Runner, encrypted site list and raw results are public.