# Airtop vs Browser Use

> Browser Use scores 77.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do browser automation. Browser Use accepts x402. Airtop doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- 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: 2026-10-08

Browser Use scores 77.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do browser automation. Browser Use accepts x402. Airtop doesn't.

- Airtop: grade C, 55.3/100, rank #453 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/airtop.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/airtop.json
- Browser Use: grade BB, 77.9/100, rank #16 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/browser-use.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/browser-use.json

## 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.

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

### Browser Use (BB)

Good for: An agent that wants to hand a whole browser task to a hosted agent and get a result back, or that needs a low-cost cloud browser over CDP, and for unattended agents that can pay by x402.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 87 against 69
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 76
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 65
- Security & auth, 59 against 46
- Payments & pricing, 90 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 77 against 24

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: The privacy policy says inputs are used to train Browser Use's AI models, with no opt-out described outside Enterprise zero data retention


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Airtop | Browser Use | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 69 | 87 | Browser Use +18 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 85 | Browser Use +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 78 | Browser Use +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 59 | Browser Use +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 90 | Browser Use +65 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 24 | 77 | Browser Use +53 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 65 | Browser Use +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **55.3 · C** | **77.9 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Airtop | Browser Use |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Switchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop) | Browser Use |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.airtop.ai/api` | `https://api.browser-use.com/api/v4` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | yes |
| Licence | Proprietary cloud service under Airtop's terms of use. The Node and Python SDKs are MIT per npm and PyPI | MIT for the open-source library and the SDK. Browser Use Cloud is a proprietary service under Browser Use's terms of service |
| Tools exposed | none | 7 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `com.browser-use/browser-use` |
| Last release | 2026-07-01 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-07-29 | 2026-07-15 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-02 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 16 stars, 16k npm/wk, 246 PyPI/wk | 117k stars, 107k npm/wk, 2.1M 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.

**Browser Use.** The hosted cloud accepts x402 top-ups in USDC on Base with no account or API key, and publishes prices, rate limits and three OpenAPI documents. The privacy policy says inputs are used to train Browser Use's models, API keys have no documented scopes, and no prompt-injection guidance was found in the docs.

## 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

### Browser Use

1. Send the key as `X-Browser-Use-API-Key` with no Bearer prefix. A Bearer header returns 401
2. Stop browsers with `PATCH /api/v4/browsers/{id}` and `{"action":"stop"}`. Closing CDP or the SDK client leaves the browser billing
3. Poll `GET /runs/{id}/status`, not the full run, and wait for the returned Retry-After on 429, which can be 300 seconds at the edge
4. Before resubmitting after a timeout, read the existing run's status. The server keeps running and may already have submitted a form
5. With a wallet and no key, call x402.api.browser-use.com on `/api/v2` or `/api/v3` routes. A task stops with INSUFFICIENT_CREDITS if credit runs out mid-run

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Airtop or Browser Use?

Browser Use scores 77.9 (BB) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in every scored category.

### Do Airtop and Browser Use need an API key?

Both need an API key. An agent can also pay Browser Use per call over x402, with no account.

### Can an agent call Airtop and Browser Use without installing anything?

Yes. Airtop has a hosted endpoint at https://api.airtop.ai/api and Browser Use at https://api.browser-use.com/api/v4.

### Are Airtop and Browser Use open source?

No open-source release is listed for Airtop. Browser Use is open source (MIT for the open-source library and the SDK. Browser Use Cloud is a proprietary service under Browser Use's terms of service).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Airtop or Browser Use

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