Browser Use

Comparison

Kernel alternatives, measured.

The main Kernel alternatives are Browser Use Cloud, Anchor, Browserbase, Browserless, Steel and Hyperbrowser. On Stealth Bench V2 (100 bot-protected sites), Browser Use Cloud got through on 90.5% of visits vs Kernel 80.5%, at $0.02 per browser-hour vs $0.06 to $0.48. Kernel starts sessions faster.

Create a browserHow we measured

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%

Stealth Bench V2 · updated 2026-09-25 · all benchmarks

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. Method and raw results.

90.5%
got through on 100 bot-protected sites; Kernel 80.5%
$0.02 / hour
pay as you go; Kernel $0.06 to $0.48, headless to headful, billed per GB-second
318 ms
Kernel's median session lifecycle on BrowserArena, faster than Browser Use Cloud at 493 ms

Stealth, price and speed, side by side.

Stealth is our benchmark, with code and raw results public. Prices are from each provider's own page. Session times are from two benchmarks we do not run.

  • Browser Use Cloud

    Got through
    90.5%
    Per browser-hour
    $0.02
    BrowserArena median
    493 ms
    ComputeSDK score
    95.2

    pay as you go, billed by the minute, no subscription · pricing

  • Anchor

    Got through
    82%
    Per browser-hour
    $0.05
    BrowserArena median
    2,800 ms
    ComputeSDK score
    Not tested

    plus $0.01 per browser created; full stealth from the $2,000/month Growth plan · source

  • Kernel

    Got through
    80.5%
    Per browser-hour
    $0.06 to $0.48
    BrowserArena median
    318 ms
    ComputeSDK score
    96.4

    headless to headful, billed per GB-second; plans $0 to $200/month · source

  • Browserbase

    Got through
    78.5%
    Per browser-hour
    $0.10 to $0.12
    BrowserArena median
    877 ms
    ComputeSDK score
    92.8

    after 100 or 500 hours included in $20 or $99/month plans · source

  • Browserless

    Got through
    77.5%
    Per browser-hour
    $0.18 to $0.24
    BrowserArena median
    No result
    ComputeSDK score
    Not tested

    overage, billed in 30-second units; plans $25 to $350/month · source

  • Steel

    Got through
    74.5%
    Per browser-hour
    $0.08 to $0.10
    BrowserArena median
    3,509 ms
    ComputeSDK score
    77.2

    $0.08 on the $250/month Scale plan; stealth browser on Enterprise · source

  • Hyperbrowser

    Got through
    73.5%
    Per browser-hour
    $0.10
    BrowserArena median
    1,417 ms
    ComputeSDK score
    94.0

    credits from a subscription or a direct purchase · source

  • Got through: share of 200 visits (100 bot-protected sites, 2 runs) where a blind judge confirmed the real site loaded, measured September 25, 2026. Every provider ran with its own proxy, stealth mode and CAPTCHA solver on; Browserbase on its standard mode, since Verified needs an Enterprise plan. Method and raw results.
  • Prices: each provider's public pricing page, checked October 15, 2026.
  • Session lifecycle: Median time to create a session, connect over CDP, load a page and release it, over 100 sequential runs. Lower is better. Run of October 14, 2026. Browserless: all 100 runs failed to connect (401), so there is no number. BrowserArena.
  • Lifecycle score: Composite lifecycle score from median and tail total latency plus create latency, times success rate. Higher is better. Run of October 9, 2026. ComputeSDK.

Moving a Playwright script takes one connect URL.

Both are Chromium over CDP, so selectors, waits and screenshots carry over. You swap one SDK for the other, and browsers.stop() replaces deleteByID(). Stealth, CAPTCHA solving and residential proxies are on by default. The Kernel code follows its docs. Full Playwright guide.
import { chromium } from "playwright-core";import Kernel from "@onkernel/sdk"; const kernel = new Kernel();const kernelBrowser = await kernel.browsers.create(); const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(kernelBrowser.cdp_ws_url);const page = browser.contexts()[0].pages()[0];await page.goto("https://example.com"); await kernel.browsers.deleteByID(kernelBrowser.session_id);
before.tsPlaywright over CDP

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).
Kernel
Session start time matters most. Fastest of this table on both third-party lifecycle benchmarks, and its docs report 30 ms P50 browser creation. Idle browsers go to standby after 5 seconds at no cost.
Anchor
Second on Stealth Bench V2 at 82%, with managed logins for agents that sign in to third-party apps.
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.
Tilion
Raw start speed above all. Fastest on both BrowserArena and ComputeSDK; not in the stealth benchmark, so no number for blocking.

Questions people ask

What are the main Kernel alternatives?

Browser Use Cloud, Anchor, Browserbase, Browserless, Steel and Hyperbrowser. On Stealth Bench V2, 100 sites that block bots, they got through on 90.5%, 82%, 78.5%, 77.5%, 74.5%, 73.5% of visits respectively; Kernel got through on 80.5%.

Is Kernel faster than Browser Use Cloud?

Yes. 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. ComputeSDK's October 9, 2026 lifecycle scores agree: Kernel 96.4, Browser Use Cloud 95.2. Kernel's own docs report browser creation at 30 ms P50 and 105 ms P99 (April 24, 2026). Tilion, which is not in the stealth benchmark, was fastest on both third-party benchmarks.

Is Browser Use Cloud cheaper than Kernel?

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. Kernel is $0.06 to $0.48 per browser-hour, headless to headful, billed per GB-second; plans $0 to $200/month, per its pricing page. On proxies Kernel is ahead: they are not billed, under fair-use rules; configurable from the $30/month plan, per its docs. Kernel's docs say an idle browser goes to standby after 5 seconds and costs nothing there, so the gap is smaller for workloads that sit idle.

How do I move Playwright code from Kernel?

Swap @onkernel/sdk for browser-use-sdk: client.browsers.create() returns a cdpUrl, which goes to connectOverCDP where you passed cdp_ws_url. Call client.browsers.stop(id) where you called kernel.browsers.deleteByID(session_id); closing the CDP connection does not stop billing. Code you run inside Kernel's VM with its Playwright execution API moves to your own process over CDP.

Is Kernel open source?

Kernel publishes kernel-images, the browser images behind its service, under Apache-2.0; the README shows how to run them as a Docker container. The browser-use agent library is MIT. Browser Use Cloud and Kernel's hosted service are both managed.

How was stealth measured, and was it fair to Kernel?

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. An independent rerun put Kernel 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.