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Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run

Airtop vs Hyperbrowser

Hyperbrowser scores 66.9 (B) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Airtop leads on schema & documentation. Both do browser automation. Hyperbrowser accepts x402. Airtop doesn't.

AirtopSwitchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop) · HTTP API C55.3/100#453 of 629 HyperbrowserS2 Labs Inc. · HTTP API B66.9/100#205 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.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 76 against 68

Watch for

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

Hyperbrowser B

Good for Agents that need a cloud browser by the minute plus cheap fetch and search, especially wallet-holding agents with no account.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 94 against 25
  • Maintenance & community, 79 against 24

Also in its favour

  • An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

The official MCP server's last npm release is 1.0.25 of 13 April 2025, and it isn't in the official MCP registry

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAirtopHyperbrowserEdge
Reliability16%206965Airtop +4
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27668Airtop +8
Agent ergonomics13%16.26567Hyperbrowser +2
Security & auth14%17.54644Airtop +2
Payments & pricing10%12.52594Hyperbrowser +69
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82479Hyperbrowser +55
Transparency & trust7%8.86164Hyperbrowser +3
Negative events≤1500
Total55.3 · C66.9 · B

Facts side by side

FactAirtopHyperbrowser
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSwitchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop)S2 Labs Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.airtop.ai/apihttps://api.hyperbrowser.ai
TransportsHTTPHTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402noyes
LicenceProprietary cloud service under Airtop's terms of use. The Node and Python SDKs are MIT per npm and PyPIProprietary service under S2 Labs' terms of service. The Node and Python SDKs and the MCP server are MIT, and HyperAgent is AGPL-3.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-07-012026-10-08
Terms last updated2025-07-29couldn't be read
Privacy policy last updated2025-09-02couldn't be read
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textcouldn't be read
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textcouldn't be read
Arbitration or class-action waiveryescouldn't be read
Popularity16 stars, 16k npm/wk, 246 PyPI/wk89k npm/wk, 73k 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.

Hyperbrowser

Sessions, Fetch and Search can be bought by x402 at api.hyperbrowser.ai with USDC on Base or Solana and no account, and unit prices are public. The official MCP server was last published in April 2025, no request rate limits or SLA are published, and the privacy notice covers only the website.

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

Hyperbrowser

  1. With a wallet and no key, POST to https://api.hyperbrowser.ai/x402/session and read the PAYMENT-REQUIRED header. Sessions are prepaid for 5 to 60 minutes with no refund
  2. Save the x402 creation response. It holds the only copy of the connection tokens, and managementToken is what stops the session
  3. Stop sessions explicitly in cleanup code. Browser time bills per second until the timeout
  4. Use Fetch at $0.001 a page for static pages and keep browser sessions for pages that need interaction
  5. Add &keepAlive=true to wsEndpoint to reconnect after a CDP disconnect. Treat that URL as a secret because it carries the session token

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Airtop or Hyperbrowser?

Hyperbrowser scores 66.9 (B) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Airtop leads on schema & documentation.

Do Airtop and Hyperbrowser need an API key?

Airtop needs an API key. Hyperbrowser takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. An agent can also pay Hyperbrowser per call over x402, with no account.

Can an agent call Airtop and Hyperbrowser without installing anything?

Yes. Airtop has a hosted endpoint at https://api.airtop.ai/api and Hyperbrowser at https://api.hyperbrowser.ai.

Other comparisons with Airtop or Hyperbrowser

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