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)

---

# Kernel alternatives

> 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.

[HTML page](https://browser-use.com/alternatives/kernel) · [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 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 |

- 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, stealth mode and CAPTCHA solver on. 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 Kernel at 83% and Browser Use Cloud at 90%. [Method, code and raw results](https://browser-use.com/benchmarks/browsers)
- Prices, checked October 15, 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)
  - Kernel: headless to headful, billed per GB-second; plans $0 to $200/month. Idle browsers go to standby after 5 seconds and cost nothing there ([Kernel docs](https://kernel.sh/docs/browsers/standby)). Proxies are not metered: not billed, under fair-use rules; configurable from the $30/month plan ([Kernel proxy docs](https://kernel.sh/docs/proxies/overview)). [Source](https://www.kernel.sh/docs/info/pricing)
  - Anchor: plus $0.01 per browser created; full stealth from the $2,000/month Growth plan. [Source](https://docs.anchorbrowser.io/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: credits from a subscription or a direct purchase. [Source](https://hyperbrowser.ai/docs/pricing)
- Session lifecycle: median time to create a session, connect over CDP, load a page and release it, over 100 sequential runs, BrowserArena run of October 14, 2026. Browserless: all 100 runs failed to connect (401), so there is no number. [BrowserArena](https://www.browserarena.ai/?percentile=median&sort=latency&date=2026-10-14)
- Lifecycle score: ComputeSDK composite of median and tail total latency plus create latency, times success rate, run of October 9, 2026. Higher is better. [ComputeSDK](https://www.computesdk.com/benchmarks/browsers/lifecycle)

## Speed: Kernel wins

On BrowserArena, Kernel's median session lifecycle was 318 ms vs 493 ms for Browser Use Cloud. ComputeSDK agrees: Kernel 96.4, Browser Use Cloud 95.2. Kernel's own docs report browser creation at 30 ms P50 and 105 ms P99, last reported April 24, 2026 ([Kernel performance docs](https://kernel.sh/docs/browsers/performance)). Tilion, which is not in the stealth benchmark, was fastest on both third-party benchmarks.

## 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).
- **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, 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.

## Move a Playwright script from Kernel

Both are Chromium over CDP. 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. The Kernel code follows [its docs](https://kernel.sh/docs/introduction/control).

```ts
// Before: Kernel
const kernelBrowser = await kernel.browsers.create();
const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(kernelBrowser.cdp_ws_url);
// ...
await kernel.browsers.deleteByID(kernelBrowser.session_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)

## Open source

Kernel publishes [kernel-images](https://github.com/kernel/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](https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use) agent library is MIT. Browser Use Cloud and Kernel's hosted service are both managed.