# Airtop vs Puppeteer

> Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) to Airtop's 55.3 (C) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-puppeteer
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-puppeteer.md (~2,500 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-puppeteer.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-puppeteer.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- 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: 2026-10-14

Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in every scored category. Both do browser automation.

- Airtop: grade C, 55.3/100, rank #700 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/airtop.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/airtop.json
- Puppeteer: grade BB, 70.6/100, rank #154 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/puppeteer.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/puppeteer.json
- Best browser automation tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/browser/index.md
- All 120 browser comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browser/index.md

## 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.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

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

### Puppeteer (BB)

Good for: Agents that write and run Node.js scripts against Chrome or Firefox.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 69
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 76
- Security & auth, 52 against 46
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 89 against 24
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 61

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: No MCP server, CLI or llms.txt of its own. The docs point agents to the separate chrome-devtools-mcp project


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Airtop | Puppeteer | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 69 | 80 | Puppeteer +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 81 | Puppeteer +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 67 | Puppeteer +2 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 52 | Puppeteer +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 60 | Puppeteer +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 24 | 89 | Puppeteer +65 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 70 | Puppeteer +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **55.3 · C** | **70.6 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Airtop | Puppeteer |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | Switchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop) | Google |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.airtop.ai/api` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary cloud service under Airtop's terms of use. The Node and Python SDKs are MIT per npm and PyPI | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-01 | 2026-10-08 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-07-29 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-02 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 16 stars, 16k npm/wk, 246 PyPI/wk | 96k stars, 11.5M 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.

**Puppeteer.** Puppeteer is a stable, Apache-2.0 library on 25.13.0, with ten releases since 27 July 2026, typed APIs, locators that wait and retry, and accessibility snapshots an agent can read. It has no MCP server or llms.txt of its own, and 10 of the 20 most recent CI runs on main failed between 7 and 13 October 2026.

## 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

### Puppeteer

1. Install with `npm i puppeteer`, which downloads a matching Chrome for Testing. Use `puppeteer-core` to bring your own browser
2. Prefer `page.locator()` over `page.$()`. Locators wait for the element to be visible and stable before acting
3. Read pages with `page.accessibility.snapshot({interestingOnly: true})` rather than full HTML to keep output short
4. Catch `TimeoutError` separately from `TargetCloseError`. The first can be retried, the second needs a new page or browser
5. Packages are ESM only since 25.0.0. Use `import puppeteer from 'puppeteer'` rather than `require`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Airtop or Puppeteer?

Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in every scored category.

### Can an agent call Airtop and Puppeteer without installing anything?

Airtop has a hosted endpoint at https://api.airtop.ai/api. No hosted endpoint is listed for Puppeteer.

### Are Airtop and Puppeteer open source?

No open-source release is listed for Airtop. Puppeteer is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Airtop or Puppeteer

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