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Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run

agent-browser vs Selenium

Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) on agent readiness against agent-browser's 66.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. agent-browser leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do browser automation.

Best browser automation tools for AI agents · All 120 browser comparisons

agent-browserVercel Labs · MCP server B66.6/100#301 of 1076 SeleniumSelenium project (Software Freedom Conservancy) · SDK + MCP BB73.6/100#90 of 1076

Which one, for what

agent-browser B

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

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 70
  • Security & auth, 67 against 43

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

Selenium BB

Best for Agents that write test or automation scripts in any of five languages, and teams with a Grid.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 90 against 48
  • Schema & documentation, 89 against 84
  • Maintenance & community, 94 against 70
  • Transparency & trust, 74 against 61

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for

No MCP server from the project. The docs point to community servers and say they are third-party

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runagent-browserSeleniumEdge
Reliability16%204890Selenium +42
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28489Selenium +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.27870agent-browser +8
Security & auth14%17.56743agent-browser +24
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87094Selenium +24
Transparency & trust7%8.86174Selenium +13
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 66.6/100BB 73.6/100

Facts side by side

Factagent-browserSelenium
KindMCP serverSDK + MCP
VendorVercel LabsSelenium project (Software Freedom Conservancy)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsstdioHTTP
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Tools exposed158none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-012026-10-09
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno 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
Popularity44k stars, 2.1M npm/wk35k stars, 1.8M npm/wk, 6.9M 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.

Selenium

Selenium is stable, Apache-2.0 software on 4.51.0 with bindings in five languages, CI passing on trunk, an llms.txt and an agent guide added in September 2026. It has no MCP server of its own, Selenium Manager sends usage statistics by default, and Grid accepts unauthenticated sessions unless a username and password are set.

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

Selenium

  1. Install with pip install selenium (Python 3.10 or later) and let Selenium Manager fetch drivers. Do not set driver paths
  2. Use WebDriverWait with expected conditions, never fixed sleeps, and do not mix implicit and explicit waits
  3. Set SE_AVOID_STATS=true to stop Selenium Manager sending usage statistics
  4. Point coding agents at https://www.selenium.dev/llms.txt. Most Selenium 2 and 3 era examples use removed APIs
  5. Set --username and --password before exposing a Grid beyond localhost. Check http://localhost:4444/status before creating sessions

Questions

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

Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) on agent readiness against agent-browser's 66.6 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. agent-browser leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth.

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

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

Are agent-browser and Selenium open source?

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

Other comparisons with agent-browser or Selenium

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