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Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run

Airtop vs Anchor Browser

Anchor Browser scores 67.3 (B) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Airtop leads on transparency & trust. Both do browser automation.

AirtopSwitchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop) · HTTP API C55.3/100#511 of 722 Anchor BrowserAnchor Forge Inc. · HTTP API B67.3/100#211 of 722

Which one, for what

Airtop C

Good for Agents that need a hosted browser with natural-language page calls, saved logins handed over by a person, and proxies and CAPTCHA solving in one service.

Ahead on

  • Transparency & trust, 61 against 51

Watch for

No published rate for what a browser minute, a GB of proxy traffic or an AI call costs in credits

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 69
  • Agent ergonomics, 73 against 65
  • Security & auth, 54 against 46
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 25
  • Maintenance & community, 57 against 24

Also in its favour

  • 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

CategoryWeight this runAirtopAnchor BrowserEdge
Reliability16%206980Anchor Browser +11
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27680Anchor Browser +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.26573Anchor Browser +8
Security & auth14%17.54654Anchor Browser +8
Payments & pricing10%12.52560Anchor Browser +35
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82457Anchor Browser +33
Transparency & trust7%8.86151Airtop +10
Negative events≤1500
Total55.3 · C67.3 · B

Facts side by side

FactAirtopAnchor Browser
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSwitchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop)Anchor Forge Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.airtop.ai/apihttps://api.anchorbrowser.io
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary cloud service under Airtop's terms of use. The Node and Python SDKs are MIT per npm and PyPIProprietary 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
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-07-012026-07-28
Terms last updated2025-07-29no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2025-09-022026-02-24
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryes
Popularity16 stars, 16k npm/wk, 246 PyPI/wk43k npm/wk, 10k PyPI/wk

Verdicts

Airtop

The cloud browser API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document, Markdown docs, natural-language page calls with a per-call credit cap, and a status page with no incident in the last 90 days. Credit rates for browser time, proxy traffic and AI calls are not published, and the developer changelog's last entry is dated 3 September 2025.

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

Airtop

  1. Terminate every session with DELETE /v1/sessions/{id}. Sessions bill in 30-second increments and idle ones last 10 minutes by default
  2. Set costThresholdCredits on AI calls and read meta.usage.credits afterwards. Credit rates are not published, so measure them
  3. Use page-query with configuration.outputSchema for structured output. prompt-content and summarize-content are deprecated
  4. When calling REST without the SDK, poll session status until running before creating a window. Only the SDK waits for you
  5. Airtop's integrated proxy cannot reach LinkedIn, ticketing sites and some banks and streaming services. Bring a custom proxy for those

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, Airtop or Anchor Browser?

Anchor Browser scores 67.3 (B) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Airtop leads on transparency & trust.

Do Airtop and Anchor Browser need an API key?

Airtop needs an API key. Anchor Browser takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Airtop and Anchor Browser without installing anything?

Yes. Airtop has a hosted endpoint at https://api.airtop.ai/api and Anchor Browser at https://api.anchorbrowser.io.

Other comparisons with Airtop or Anchor Browser

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