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Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run

Anchor Browser vs Browserless

Browserless scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Anchor Browser's 67.3 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Anchor Browser leads on payments & pricing. Both do browser automation.

Anchor BrowserAnchor Forge Inc. · HTTP API B67.3/100#196 of 629 Browserlessbrowserless.io, Inc. · HTTP API BB70.4/100#128 of 629

Which one, for what

Anchor Browser B

Good for Agents that must work inside signed-in accounts, with managed identities, MFA handling and a human sign-in link, and agents that need to start with no human signup.

Ahead on

  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 40

Watch for

No service agreement or API terms found. anchorbrowser.io/terms is a website terms of use dated 16 March 2025

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

  • Schema & documentation, 89 against 80
  • Agent ergonomics, 78 against 73
  • Maintenance & community, 82 against 57
  • Transparency & trust, 62 against 51

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Runs on your own machine

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 runAnchor BrowserBrowserlessEdge
Reliability16%208082Browserless +2
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28089Browserless +9
Agent ergonomics13%16.27378Browserless +5
Security & auth14%17.55453Anchor Browser +1
Payments & pricing10%12.56040Anchor Browser +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.85782Browserless +25
Transparency & trust7%8.85162Browserless +11
Negative events≤1500
Total67.3 · B70.4 · BB

Facts side by side

FactAnchor BrowserBrowserless
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorAnchor Forge Inc.browserless.io, Inc.
Hosted endpointhttps://api.anchorbrowser.iohttps://production-sfo.browserless.io
TransportsHTTPHTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio
AuthOAuth or keyOAuth or key
PricingFreemiumFreemium
x402nono
LicenceProprietary cloud service. No service agreement was found, only a website terms of use. The TypeScript and Python SDKs and the self-hosted MCP server are Apache-2.0SSPL 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 release2026-07-282026-10-05
Terms last updatedno document linkedno date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-02-24no date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticeyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity43k npm/wk, 10k PyPI/wk14k stars, 3.5k npm/wk

Verdicts

Anchor Browser

The API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 document, per-unit prices and Agent Access, an unauthenticated flow that issues a trial API key without a dashboard account. No service agreement is published, only a website terms of use, and the documented CDP connection puts the API key in the URL.

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

Anchor Browser

  1. Send the key in the anchor-api-key header. For CDP, build wss://connect.anchorbrowser.io?apiKey=<key>&sessionId=<id> and keep that URL out of logs
  2. Set session.timeout.idle_timeout and max_duration and end sessions with DELETE. The default maximum is 180 minutes, and browser time bills by the minute
  3. Session creation is capped at 5 a minute on Free, 25 on Starter and 100 on Growth. On 429, wait for the Retry-After seconds
  4. Connect the Anchor MCP server or Anchor (all), not both, because the docs say the pair duplicates tool names
  5. Authenticated browsers, CAPTCHA solving and proxies by country need the Starter plan or higher. The Free plan and Agent Access keys run plain sessions and web tasks

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, Anchor Browser or Browserless?

Browserless scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Anchor Browser's 67.3 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Anchor Browser leads on payments & pricing.

Do Anchor Browser and Browserless need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

Can an agent call Anchor Browser and Browserless without installing anything?

Yes. Anchor Browser has a hosted endpoint at https://api.anchorbrowser.io and Browserless at https://production-sfo.browserless.io.

Other comparisons with Anchor Browser or Browserless

Machine-readable

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