# Anchor Browser vs BxPlaywright (slim)

> Anchor Browser scores 60.1 (C) to BxPlaywright's 55 (C) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-bx-playwright.md (~6,150 tokens) · this version ~3,830 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-bx-playwright.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-bx-playwright
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-01
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Anchor Browser scores 60.1 (C) on agent readiness against BxPlaywright's 55 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. BxPlaywright leads on payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do browser automation.

- Anchor Browser: C 60.1, rank #615 of 1260 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/anchor-browser.min.md
- BxPlaywright: C 55, rank #816 of 1260 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bx-playwright.min.md
- Anchor Browser, 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 Reliability, 77 against 41; Schema & documentation, 80 against 66; Agent ergonomics, 73 against 63; Security & auth, 54 against 43. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Free to start without a card.
- BxPlaywright, good for Teams on BoxLang or modernising CFML who want browser tests, rendering and a browser for BoxLang AI agents in the same language. Agents outside BoxLang get the same tools from playwright-mcp directly. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 60 against 30; Transparency & trust, 70 against 53. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; No incidents deducted, where Anchor Browser loses 3 points for them.

| Category | Anchor Browser | BxPlaywright |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 77 | 41 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 80 | 66 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 73 | 63 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 54 | 43 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 57 | 53 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 53 | 70 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Anchor Browser | BxPlaywright |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | Anchor Forge Inc. | Ortus Solutions |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.anchorbrowser.io` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | Proprietary 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-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-07-28 | 2026-10-23 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-02-24 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 43k npm/wk, 10k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Anchor Browser +36: Anchor Browser 77 (Graded as a hosted service. status.anchorbrowser.io runs on incident.io with two components, Website and Anchor Application (20). Both show operational on 1 November, and the RSS feed is still empty. The page has recorded no incident since it was set up in June 2025. This run reads a readable page that has never posted an incident as a clean record at 20, as for quicken-simplifi, outline and linkup, where the 8 October check gave 25, a value the checklist doesn't name (20). Limits are published, 5, 25 and 100 session creations a minute and 5, 25 and 200 concurrent browsers by plan, and 2,000 requests a minute on Web Unlocker (15). The OpenAPI document declares 429 on ten operations, with `RateLimit` and `Retry-After` headers on session creation, and the Web Unlocker docs say to retry 429, 500, 503 and 504 with exponential backoff. The sessions guide now says a 429 from the per-minute limiter comes before a session exists, so retrying it doesn't create a second one, that the API reads no `Idempotency-Key`, so retrying a 5xx or 409 can, and which statuses are terminal. Safe-retry guidance without idempotency keys, read as e2b's (12). No SLA was found on the pricing page, the docs or the site (0). The API is version 1.0.0, the SDKs are 1.0 and nothing marks the sessions API as beta (10). 20 + 20 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 77.); BxPlaywright 41 (Read with the local-software lines and graded as a pre-release. Official package on ForgeBox with BoxLang 1.17.0 or later, Java 21 and the supported platforms stated, but the only version is 1.0.0-snapshot, rebuilt from the development branch on 23 October 2026, with no binary hash on the entry (14 of 20). tests.yml runs 24 test files on Ubuntu and Windows with JDK 21, real-browser tests on Linux and a test of the full distribution, on pull requests, pushes to development and daily. Whether runs pass wasn't read, since WebFetch refused GitHub (15 of 25). Issues weren't readable for the same reason, bugs go to Ortus's Jira, and the repository is a month old, so there's no record to read (5 of 25). Keep a Changelog with semantic versioning stated and a written public contract, but nothing has been released under it and the changelog reads only [Unreleased] (7 of 15). Ortus announced 1.0 as generally available on 13 October, but no 1.0.0 build or tag exists, so it isn't 1.0 for this line (0 of 15). 14+15+5+7+0 = 41.)
- Payments & pricing, BxPlaywright +30: Anchor Browser 30 (No machine payment protocol was confirmed on Anchor's own endpoints. A blog post dated 29 August 2025 shows x402 on `POST /v1/sessions`, but our unpaid request on 1 November 2026 returned 401 "Unauthorized, please log in.", as on 8 October, and the docs don't describe it. The session option named `x402` lets a browser pay other sites (0). Per-browser, per-hour, per-GB, per-step and, now, per-run prices for Automation Tasks (0.1 credits, $0.10, with failed runs not charged the task fee) are published without login (20). The Free plan has $5 of credits a month. Agent Access, which granted 1 credit with no account and no card, answered "Agent Access is disabled" on 1 November, and whether dashboard sign-up asks for a card wasn't read, so half, as smartsheet's unconfirmed trial (10). With Agent Access disabled, a key comes from a dashboard account at app.anchorbrowser.io, which a person creates in a browser (0). 0 + 20 + 10 + 0 = 30.); BxPlaywright 60 (Free, self-hosted, nothing to buy, so 20 + 20 + 20. The BoxLang runtime's paid plans aren't needed for this module. No payment protocol (0). 60 in all.)
- Transparency & trust, BxPlaywright +17: Anchor Browser 53 (The service is closed. The SDKs and the self-hosted MCP server are Apache-2.0. The only terms published are a website terms of use dated 16 March 2025, which grants personal, non-commercial use of the site and does not cover the API, so the terms for the paid service are unclear (8). The security page says session data is not stored and each browser's virtual machine is destroyed, the pricing page gives 7 days of data retention, recordings are on by default, and Zero Data Retention is by request. The privacy policy (24 February 2026) covers the website and customer contacts, with one product section on Gmail access. The DPA and data handling policy sit behind an access request (15). The legacy tasks API and the old MCP address are labelled and still work, and the SDK has a migration guide. No deprecation policy or dates (5). The security page names AWS us-east-2 and eu-central-1. The trust portal has a subprocessor section, of which our reader saw only OpenAI and Anthropic (12). Terms and privacy policy dates unchanged on 1 November. 8 + 15 + 5 + 12 = 40.); BxPlaywright 70 (Apache-2.0, OSI approved, in box.json and src/main/resources/LICENSE (30). Local software with no data statement for the module. The source contacts only nodejs.org, Playwright's browser downloads and the pages it is told to open, and Ortus's privacy policy covers its website and customers (15 of 30). The integrations page says a minor release only adds and removals wait for a major release, listed in the changelog. Nothing has been released under it, and the module was renamed from `playwright` to `bxplaywright` on 12 October before any release (10 of 20). No telemetry found in the source and no statement either way in the docs, scored as boxlang-ai was (10 of 20). 30+15+10+10 = 65.)
- Schema & documentation, Anchor Browser +14: Anchor Browser 80 (OpenAPI 3.1.0 at docs.anchorbrowser.io/openapi.yaml with 101 paths and 136 operations, unchanged on 1 November, and the `anchor-api-key` header scheme (25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt and a Markdown twin of every docs page (10). All 136 operations carry a description, the spec's introduction says which resource suits which job, and a docs page compares the task types. Few descriptions say when not to use an endpoint (16). Inputs are typed with 90 enum declarations and named request schemas. We did not audit every field for bounds (11). The spec holds 121 examples and declares 400, 401, 404 and 500 widely, with one shared error schema of `code` and `message` (12). Paths are versioned under /v1 and a legacy spec is kept. No API changelog was found, docs.anchorbrowser.io/changelog still returns 404 on 1 November, and the SDK changelog stops at 1.0.0-dev.4 (6). 25 + 10 + 16 + 11 + 12 + 6 = 80.); BxPlaywright 66 (Library reading. BoxLang is dynamically typed. The public API is listed in the docs' integrations page, `help()` and `bxplaywright help --json` describe it at run time, and the ten agent tools describe each argument in a sentence, with no published API reference (14 of 25). llms.txt with a Markdown copy of each of 18 docs pages (10). The AI page says when to use `aiTools()`, the registry or MCP, and when to turn registration off. Tool descriptions are one line each (13 of 20). Every agent-tool argument is a string, with no enums or limits; library options are checked, and InvalidOption lists the valid values (9 of 15). An errors page lists each error type with when it happens and the fix, eight runnable examples sit in the repository, and the docs have code on every page (13 of 15). Keep a Changelog and docs versioning on release, but no released version and no tags yet (7 of 15). 14+10+13+9+13+7 = 66.)
- Security & auth, Anchor Browser +11: Anchor Browser 54 (API keys in the `anchor-api-key` header, per project. The MCP servers also accept OAuth through signin.anchorbrowser.io with `mcp:tools` and `mcp:admin` scopes. No key scopes, expiry or rotation guidance were found in the docs (22). The documented CDP connection passes the key as `apiKey` in the `wss://connect.anchorbrowser.io` URL, a secret in a query string (minus 10). No read-only API key. Live view has a read-only mode, volumes mount read-only, secrets can be limited to matching domains, identities sign in without returning credentials, and tasks can pause for a person's input (13). No prompt-injection guidance was found in the docs. Secret values and sensitive data masking keep credentials out of the model's view, which is a partial mitigation (4). Recordings, session history, webhook delivery logs and a billing endpoint give the operator a trail. The audit logs on the security page are restricted to Anchor's staff (11). SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and HIPAA per the security page and trust portal, with reports behind an access request, and a disclosure contact in the SDK's SECURITY.md. No security.txt (404 again on 1 November) or bug bounty was found (14). The documented CDP URL still carries `apiKey` on 1 November. 22 - 10 + 13 + 4 + 11 + 14 = 54.); BxPlaywright 43 (Library reading, as puppeteer and playwright-mcp were. No credential to leak and nothing to scope, so the middle band (20 of 30). Nothing is restricted by default. `browser_visit` takes any URL with no allow-list, `browser_screenshot` writes to any path the model passes, and the tools are added to bx-ai's global registry unless `registerAiTools` is false, so an agent given every registered tool gets a browser. Over MCP it starts Microsoft's server, which limits file access to workspace roots, and Ortus's plugin starts it with `--headless` but without `--isolated`, with `browser_run_code_unsafe` and `browser_evaluate` in the default set. HTTPS errors are not ignored by default (6 of 20). Page snapshots and text go to the model unfenced, and the docs give no prompt-injection guidance (0 of 15). Screenshot, trace and video policies, `show-trace`, and interception points such as onPageCreate and onPlaywrightArtifact give the operator a record, all off by default (10 of 15). CONTRIBUTING.md asks for reports to security@ortussolutions.com and the Slack #security channel; SECURITY.md points there. No security.txt (410, per the boxlang-ai check of the same day), no bounty, no advisories. Node.js downloads are checked against the release's SHA-256 list (7 of 20). 20+6+0+10+7 = 43.)
- Agent ergonomics, Anchor Browser +10: Anchor Browser 73 (The main MCP server lists about 24 tools and reaches the other REST routes through `list_endpoints`, `get_endpoint` and two call tools. Browser control and per-site actions are separate servers, and the docs warn that `/v1/mcp/actions` without a domain lists thousands of tools. 15 for the tool count plus 5 for the split servers (20). Session lists take `page`, `limit`, sort, search and filters by status, tag, domain and date, volumes use a cursor, and webhook deliveries take `limit` and `offset` (17). Errors return an integer code and a message, 402 marks exhausted credits, and Agent Access errors name the next call. No stable machine-readable error codes were found (13). No idempotency keys. The MCP server splits `call_endpoint_read` from `call_endpoint_write`, and batch sessions have a retry-failed call. Tool annotations were not read because the server needs a key (8). A session starts from an empty body, and the SDKs cover TypeScript and Python (15). 20 + 17 + 13 + 8 + 15 = 73.); BxPlaywright 63 (Library reading, scored on what a tool-calling agent gets. Ten compact in-process tools for BoxLang AI, with nothing to load until a tool is used (25 for ten or fewer), less 5 because every action tool returns the whole page's AI snapshot. Through MCP an agent gets Playwright's 24 default tools (20 of 25). The agent tools have no depth, selector or size limit, and `browser_text` returns the whole page. `snapshot( selector )` exists in the library but not in the tools (8 of 20). Errors come back to the agent as text in the form `Error [type]: message Fix: detail`, and the error types are documented (16 of 20). Assertions retry until they pass. The in-process tools carry no read-only or destructive hints, and bx-ai doesn't read them; over MCP the annotations are Microsoft's (8 of 20). Works with defaults (headless Chromium, 1280 by 720) and profiles, but in one language, BoxLang, with the MCP route for any other client (11 of 15). 20+8+16+8+11 = 63.)