# agent-browser vs Puppeteer

> Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) to agent-browser's 66.6 (B) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-puppeteer
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-puppeteer.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-puppeteer.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-puppeteer.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: 2026-10-14

Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against agent-browser's 66.6 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. agent-browser leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do browser automation.

- agent-browser: grade B, 66.6/100, rank #301 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/agent-browser.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/agent-browser.json
- Puppeteer: grade BB, 70.6/100, rank #154 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/puppeteer.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/puppeteer.json
- Best browser automation tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/browser/index.md
- All 120 browser comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browser/index.md

## 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 67
- Security & auth, 67 against 52

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

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

### Puppeteer (BB)

Good for: Agents that write and run Node.js scripts against Chrome or Firefox.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 48
- Maintenance & community, 89 against 70
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: No MCP server, CLI or llms.txt of its own. The docs point agents to the separate chrome-devtools-mcp project


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | agent-browser | Puppeteer | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 48 | 80 | Puppeteer +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 81 | agent-browser +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 67 | agent-browser +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 67 | 52 | agent-browser +15 |
| 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 | 89 | Puppeteer +19 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 70 | Puppeteer +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.6 · B** | **70.6 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | agent-browser | Puppeteer |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | Vercel Labs | Google |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | stdio |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 158 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| 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 | 96k stars, 11.5M 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.

**Puppeteer.** Puppeteer is a stable, Apache-2.0 library on 25.13.0, with ten releases since 27 July 2026, typed APIs, locators that wait and retry, and accessibility snapshots an agent can read. It has no MCP server or llms.txt of its own, and 10 of the 20 most recent CI runs on main failed between 7 and 13 October 2026.

## 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

### Puppeteer

1. Install with `npm i puppeteer`, which downloads a matching Chrome for Testing. Use `puppeteer-core` to bring your own browser
2. Prefer `page.locator()` over `page.$()`. Locators wait for the element to be visible and stable before acting
3. Read pages with `page.accessibility.snapshot({interestingOnly: true})` rather than full HTML to keep output short
4. Catch `TimeoutError` separately from `TargetCloseError`. The first can be retried, the second needs a new page or browser
5. Packages are ESM only since 25.0.0. Use `import puppeteer from 'puppeteer'` rather than `require`

## Questions

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

Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against agent-browser's 66.6 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. agent-browser leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth.

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

agent-browser runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Puppeteer.

### Are agent-browser and Puppeteer open source?

Yes. agent-browser is open source (Apache-2.0). Puppeteer is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with agent-browser or Puppeteer

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