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Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run

agent-browser vs Browserless

Browserless scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against agent-browser's 66.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. agent-browser leads on security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do browser automation.

agent-browserVercel Labs · MCP server B66.6/100#263 of 841 Browserlessbrowserless.io, Inc. · HTTP API BB70.4/100#148 of 841

Which one, for what

agent-browser B

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

Ahead on

  • Security & auth, 67 against 53
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

Also in its favour

  • No key needed to call it
  • 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

Browserless BB

Good for Agents that need a real browser in the cloud with stealth, proxies and CAPTCHA solving, and teams that want the option of running the same server themselves.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 82 against 48
  • Schema & documentation, 89 against 84
  • Maintenance & community, 82 against 70

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

REST and WebSocket routes take the API token as ?token= in the URL, which the docs give as the standard method

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runagent-browserBrowserlessEdge
Reliability16%204882Browserless +34
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28489Browserless +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.27878even
Security & auth14%17.56753agent-browser +14
Payments & pricing10%12.56040agent-browser +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87082Browserless +12
Transparency & trust7%8.86162Browserless +1
Negative events≤1500
Total66.6 · B70.4 · BB

Facts side by side

Factagent-browserBrowserless
KindMCP serverHTTP API
VendorVercel Labsbrowserless.io, Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://production-sfo.browserless.io
TransportsstdioHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthNoneOAuth or key
PricingFreeFreemium
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0SSPL 1.0 or a commercial licence for the core server and the MCP server. The BAP TypeScript SDK is MIT. BrowserQL, stealth and other cloud additions are proprietary
Tools exposed15814
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-012026-10-05
Terms last updatedno document linkedno date given
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity44k stars, 2.1M npm/wk14k stars, 3.5k npm/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.

Browserless

An OpenAPI document, llms.txt and a 14-tool MCP server with annotations on every tool make the service easy for an agent to read, and the free plan needs no card. The API token travels in the URL query string by default, cloud tokens carry no scopes, and no machine payment route exists.

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

Browserless

  1. Send the token as Authorization: Bearer to the MCP server. On REST and WebSocket routes it goes in ?token=, so keep those URLs out of logs
  2. Close sessions as soon as the work is done. Browser time bills one unit per 30 seconds, rounded up, idle or not
  3. For multi-step work with browserless_agent, set keepSessionAlive: true on the first call and pass the returned sessionId after that. Sessions are one-shot by default since server 1.33.0
  4. On 429, back off and retry. It means the plan's concurrency limit or queue is full, usually from sessions left open
  5. Match the path to the protocol. Use /chromium for CDP clients and /chromium/playwright only for playwright.connect()

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, agent-browser or Browserless?

Browserless scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against agent-browser's 66.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. agent-browser leads on security & auth and payments & pricing.

Do agent-browser and Browserless need an API key?

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

Can an agent call agent-browser and Browserless without installing anything?

agent-browser runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. Browserless has a hosted endpoint at https://production-sfo.browserless.io.

Are agent-browser and Browserless open source?

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

Other comparisons with agent-browser or Browserless

Machine-readable

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