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Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run

Airtop vs Skyvern

Skyvern scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Airtop leads on reliability. Both do browser automation.

AirtopSwitchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop) · HTTP API C55.3/100#453 of 629 SkyvernIkonomos Inc. (Skyvern) · HTTP API B63.1/100#288 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

  • Reliability, 69 against 57

Also in its favour

  • No incidents deducted, where Skyvern loses 3 points for them

Watch for

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

Skyvern B

Good for Agents that must finish a multi-step job on sites with logins, 2FA and forms, where stored credentials, saved workflows and cached scripts matter more than raw browser time.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 88 against 76
  • Agent ergonomics, 76 against 65
  • Security & auth, 59 against 46
  • Payments & pricing, 32 against 25
  • Maintenance & community, 85 against 24
  • Transparency & trust, 72 against 61

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine
  • Free to start without a card
  • Open source

Watch for

Every API key and OAuth token has full organisation authority. The docs state there are no read-only, per-endpoint or per-resource keys

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAirtopSkyvernEdge
Reliability16%206957Airtop +12
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.27688Skyvern +12
Agent ergonomics13%16.26576Skyvern +11
Security & auth14%17.54659Skyvern +13
Payments & pricing10%12.52532Skyvern +7
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.82485Skyvern +61
Transparency & trust7%8.86172Skyvern +11
Negative events≤150-3
Total55.3 · C63.1 · B

Facts side by side

FactAirtopSkyvern
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorSwitchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop)Ikonomos Inc. (Skyvern)
Hosted endpointhttps://api.airtop.ai/apihttps://api.skyvern.com/v1
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 PyPIAGPL-3.0 for the open-source server, SDKs and MCP server. Skyvern Cloud is a proprietary service under Skyvern's terms, and its anti-bot measures aren't in the repository
Tools exposednone114
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listedio.github.Skyvern-AI/skyvern
Last release2026-07-012026-10-01
Terms last updated2025-07-292026-02-27
Privacy policy last updated2025-09-022026-10-01
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textyes, with an opt-out
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesyes
Popularity16 stars, 16k npm/wk, 246 PyPI/wk23k stars, 3.2k npm/wk, 1.6k 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.

Skyvern

The hosted MCP server annotates every tool as read-only or destructive and can advertise a 29 or 32-tool subset in place of 114, and the API has a written six-month deprecation policy. Every key and OAuth token carries full organisation authority, with no read-only or scoped credential, and no request rate limits are documented.

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

Skyvern

  1. Connect to https://api.skyvern.com/mcp/x/lean or /x/operate, or send X-Skyvern-Scope, so the client loads 32 or 29 tools. The scope filters the list and does not limit permissions
  2. Use a separate Skyvern organisation for each blast radius. Any key or OAuth token can read and write stored credentials and delete workflows
  3. Never pass passwords to skyvern_act or skyvern_type. Store them as credentials and call skyvern_login
  4. Set max_steps on tasks, or x-max-steps-override on agent runs, to cap credits. A run that reaches the cap ends as timed_out
  5. On 503 from POST /v1/run/agents, wait Retry-After seconds. No run was created, so resubmitting is safe

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Airtop or Skyvern?

Skyvern scores 63.1 (B) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Airtop leads on reliability.

Do Airtop and Skyvern need an API key?

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

Can an agent call Airtop and Skyvern without installing anything?

Yes. Airtop has a hosted endpoint at https://api.airtop.ai/api and Skyvern at https://api.skyvern.com/v1.

Are Airtop and Skyvern open source?

No open-source release is listed for Airtop. Skyvern is open source (AGPL-3.0 for the open-source server, SDKs and MCP server. Skyvern Cloud is a proprietary service under Skyvern's terms, and its anti-bot measures aren't in the repository).

Other comparisons with Airtop or Skyvern

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