# Airtop vs Steel

> Steel scores 70.4 (BB) 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. Steel accepts x402. Airtop doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-steel
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-steel.md (~2,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-steel.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-steel.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: 2026-10-08

Steel scores 70.4 (BB) 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. Steel accepts x402. Airtop doesn't.

- Airtop: grade C, 55.3/100, rank #511 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/airtop.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/airtop.json
- Steel: grade BB, 70.4/100, rank #136 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/steel.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/steel.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.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 69 against 58

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

### Steel (BB)

Good for: Agents that need a real cloud browser with persistent profiles, stored logins, CAPTCHA solving and a human takeover path, and teams that want an open-source runtime they can also self-host.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 86 against 76
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 65
- Security & auth, 56 against 46
- Payments & pricing, 75 against 25
- Maintenance & community, 82 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: Three incidents of more than an hour hit the API or session creation in the 90 days to 8 October 2026, the longest 5 hours 41 minutes


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Airtop | Steel | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 69 | 58 | Airtop +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 76 | 86 | Steel +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 79 | Steel +14 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 56 | Steel +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 25 | 75 | Steel +50 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 24 | 82 | Steel +58 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 64 | Steel +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **55.3 · C** | **70.4 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Airtop | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Switchboard Visual Technologies, Inc. (dba Airtop) | Nen Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.airtop.ai/api` | `https://api.steel.dev` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | yes, from $0.01/call |
| Licence | Proprietary cloud service under Airtop's terms of use. The Node and Python SDKs are MIT per npm and PyPI | Proprietary cloud service under Steel's terms. steel-browser and the Node and Python SDKs are Apache-2.0. The MCP server and the CLI are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-07-01 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2025-07-29 | 2025-02-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-02 | 2026-02-05 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| 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 | 47k npm/wk, 63k 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.

**Steel.** The hosted API has a public OpenAPI document, per-unit prices, $30 of starting credit and x402 payment for scrape, screenshot and PDF calls. The status page records three API or session-creation incidents of more than an hour in 90 days, and the documented CDP connection puts the API key in the URL.

## 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

### Steel

1. Use `POST /v1/scrape` for pages you only need to read. It starts no session and costs $5 per 1,000 calls, or $0.01 a call by x402
2. Release every session with `POST /v1/sessions/{id}/release` and set `inactivityTimeout`. Browser time bills by the minute, rounded up
3. Build the CDP URL as `wss://connect.steel.dev?apiKey=<key>&sessionId=<id>` and keep it out of logs, because it carries the key
4. Launch sessions end after 15 minutes at most, and `timeout` cannot be changed on a live session
5. CAPTCHA solving and Steel's managed proxies on Launch need $10 of paid balance. Free credit does not count

## Questions

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

Steel scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Airtop's 55.3 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Airtop leads on reliability.

### Do Airtop and Steel need an API key?

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

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

Yes. Airtop has a hosted endpoint at https://api.airtop.ai/api and Steel at https://api.steel.dev.

### Are Airtop and Steel open source?

No open-source release is listed for Airtop. Steel is open source (Proprietary cloud service under Steel's terms. steel-browser and the Node and Python SDKs are Apache-2.0. The MCP server and the CLI are MIT).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Airtop or Steel

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