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Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run

Airtop vs Browserless

Browserless scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do browser automation.

AirtopSwitchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop) · HTTP API C55.3/100#453 of 629 Browserlessbrowserless.io, Inc. · HTTP API BB70.4/100#128 of 629

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.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

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

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 69
  • Schema & documentation, 89 against 76
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 65
  • Security & auth, 53 against 46
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 25
  • Maintenance & community, 82 against 24

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Runs on your own machine
  • 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 runAirtopBrowserlessEdge
Reliability16%206982Browserless +13
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27689Browserless +13
Agent ergonomics13%16.26578Browserless +13
Security & auth14%17.54653Browserless +7
Payments & pricing10%12.52540Browserless +15
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82482Browserless +58
Transparency & trust7%8.86162Browserless +1
Negative events≤1500
Total55.3 · C70.4 · BB

Facts side by side

FactAirtopBrowserless
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSwitchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop)browserless.io, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.airtop.ai/apihttps://production-sfo.browserless.io
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
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 PyPISSPL 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 exposednone14
Read-only variant documentednoyes
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-07-012026-10-05
Terms last updated2025-07-29no date given
Privacy policy last updated2025-09-02no date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot found in the text
Popularity16 stars, 16k npm/wk, 246 PyPI/wk14k stars, 3.5k npm/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.

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

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

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, Airtop or Browserless?

Browserless scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in every scored category.

Do Airtop and Browserless need an API key?

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

Can an agent call Airtop and Browserless without installing anything?

Yes. Airtop has a hosted endpoint at https://api.airtop.ai/api and Browserless at https://production-sfo.browserless.io.

Other comparisons with Airtop or Browserless

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