# Anchor Browser vs Steel (slim)

> Steel scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Anchor Browser's 67.3 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Anchor Browser leads on reliability. Both do browser automation. Steel accepts x402. Anchor Browser doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side…

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-steel.md (~2,500 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-steel.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-steel
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Steel scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Anchor Browser's 67.3 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Anchor Browser leads on reliability. Both do browser automation. Steel accepts x402. Anchor Browser doesn't.

- Anchor Browser: B 67.3, rank #211 of 722 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/anchor-browser.min.md
- Steel: BB 70.4, rank #136 of 722 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/steel.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, 80 against 58.
- Steel, 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 80; Agent ergonomics, 79 against 73; Payments & pricing, 75 against 60; Maintenance & community, 82 against 57; Transparency & trust, 64 against 51. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account; Runs on your own machine; Open source.

| Category | Anchor Browser | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 80 | 58 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 80 | 86 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 73 | 79 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 54 | 56 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 75 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 57 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 51 | 64 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Anchor Browser | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Anchor Forge Inc. | Nen Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.anchorbrowser.io` | `https://api.steel.dev` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| x402 | no | yes, from $0.01/call |
| 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 | 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 |
| Last release | 2026-07-28 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2025-02-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-02-24 | 2026-02-05 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 43k npm/wk, 10k PyPI/wk | 47k npm/wk, 63k PyPI/wk |