# agent-browser vs Anchor Browser

> Anchor Browser and agent-browser score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.3 (B) and 66.6 (B). agent-browser leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do browser automation. Category scores, facts, verdicts…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-anchor-browser
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-anchor-browser.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-anchor-browser.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-anchor-browser.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Anchor Browser and agent-browser score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.3 (B) and 66.6 (B). agent-browser leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do browser automation.

- agent-browser: grade B, 66.6/100, rank #263 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agent-browser.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-browser.json
- Anchor Browser: grade B, 67.3/100, rank #237 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/anchor-browser.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/anchor-browser.json

## Which one, for what

### agent-browser (B)

Good for: Coding agents with a shell that want short commands and compact snapshots.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 73
- Security & auth, 67 against 54
- Maintenance & community, 70 against 57
- Transparency & trust, 61 against 51

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: The ten most recent CI runs on main, 1 to 8 October 2026, all concluded in failure. In the newest, Windows Rust tests and native end-to-end tests failed

### Anchor Browser (B)

Good for: Agents that must work inside signed-in accounts, with managed identities, MFA handling and a human sign-in link, and agents that need to start with no human signup.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 48

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No service agreement or API terms found. anchorbrowser.io/terms is a website terms of use dated 16 March 2025


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | agent-browser | Anchor Browser | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 48 | 80 | Anchor Browser +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 80 | agent-browser +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 73 | agent-browser +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 67 | 54 | agent-browser +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 57 | agent-browser +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 51 | agent-browser +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.6 · B** | **67.3 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | agent-browser | Anchor Browser |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Vercel Labs | Anchor Forge Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.anchorbrowser.io` |
| Transports | stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary cloud service. No service agreement was found, only a website terms of use. The TypeScript and Python SDKs and the self-hosted MCP server are Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 158 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-07-28 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-02-24 |
| Customer content may train models |  |  |
| Terms restrict automated access |  |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  |  |
| Popularity | 44k stars, 2.1M npm/wk | 43k npm/wk, 10k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**agent-browser.** Snapshots with element refs, a 29-tool default MCP profile and opt-in domain allowlists, action policies and content boundary markers suit agent use. The project is at 0.38.2 with no stable release, the ten most recent CI runs on main failed between 1 and 8 October 2026, and every security control is off by default.

**Anchor Browser.** The API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document, per-unit prices and Agent Access, an unauthenticated flow that issues a trial API key without a dashboard account. No service agreement is published, only a website terms of use, and the documented CDP connection puts the API key in the URL.

## Before you call either

### agent-browser

1. Run `agent-browser install` once after `npm install -g agent-browser`. It downloads Chrome for Testing
2. Take a fresh `snapshot -i` after any navigation. Refs survive same-document changes only
3. Pass `--json` for machine-readable results and `--max-output` to cap page text
4. Set `--allowed-domains`, `--action-policy` and `--content-boundaries` for untrusted sites. None is on by default, and the allowlist rejects `--profile`, `--cdp` and `--restore`
5. Start MCP with `agent-browser mcp`, and add profiles such as `--tools core,network` only when needed

### Anchor Browser

1. Send the key in the `anchor-api-key` header. For CDP, build `wss://connect.anchorbrowser.io?apiKey=<key>&sessionId=<id>` and keep that URL out of logs
2. Set `session.timeout.idle_timeout` and `max_duration` and end sessions with DELETE. The default maximum is 180 minutes, and browser time bills by the minute
3. Session creation is capped at 5 a minute on Free, 25 on Starter and 100 on Growth. On 429, wait for the `Retry-After` seconds
4. Connect the `Anchor` MCP server or `Anchor (all)`, not both, because the docs say the pair duplicates tool names
5. Authenticated browsers, CAPTCHA solving and proxies by country need the Starter plan or higher. The Free plan and Agent Access keys run plain sessions and web tasks

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, agent-browser or Anchor Browser?

Anchor Browser and agent-browser score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.3 (B) and 66.6 (B). agent-browser leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth, maintenance & community and transparency & trust.

### Do agent-browser and Anchor Browser need an API key?

agent-browser needs no key. Anchor Browser takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call agent-browser and Anchor Browser without installing anything?

agent-browser runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. Anchor Browser has a hosted endpoint at https://api.anchorbrowser.io.

### Are agent-browser and Anchor Browser open source?

agent-browser is open source (Apache-2.0). No open-source release is listed for Anchor Browser.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-anchor-browser.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-anchor-browser.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "agent-browser", "b": "anchor-browser"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare agent-browser anchor-browser`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-browser.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/anchor-browser.json

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- [agent-browser vs Browser Use](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-browser-use.md)
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- [agent-browser vs Browserless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-browserless.md)
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- [Airtop vs Anchor Browser](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-anchor-browser.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Browser Use](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-browser-use.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Browserbase](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-browserbase.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Browserless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-browserless.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Chrome DevTools MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-chrome-devtools-mcp.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Hyperbrowser](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-hyperbrowser.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Notte](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-notte.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Playwright MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-playwright-mcp.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-puppeteer-reference-server-archived.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Skyvern](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-skyvern.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Steel](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-steel.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-tinyfish.md)