# Anchor Browser vs TinyFish

> TinyFish and Anchor Browser score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.7 (B) and 67.3 (B). Anchor Browser leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do browser automation. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-tinyfish
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-tinyfish.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-tinyfish.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-tinyfish.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: 2026-10-09

TinyFish and Anchor Browser score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.7 (B) and 67.3 (B). Anchor Browser leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do browser automation.

- Anchor Browser: grade B, 67.3/100, rank #237 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/anchor-browser.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/anchor-browser.json
- TinyFish: grade B, 67.7/100, rank #227 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tinyfish.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish.json

## 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:
- Reliability, 80 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 55

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

### TinyFish (B)

Good for: Agents that want one account for a goal-driven web agent, a raw CDP browser, and free search and fetch.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 80
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 73
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 57
- Transparency & trust, 59 against 51

Watch for: The terms of 17 August 2026 allow Tiny Fish to train and improve its models on customer data. No opt-out was found in the reviewed pages


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Anchor Browser | TinyFish | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 60 | Anchor Browser +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 85 | TinyFish +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 79 | TinyFish +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 57 | TinyFish +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 55 | Anchor Browser +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 57 | 80 | TinyFish +23 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 51 | 59 | TinyFish +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.3 · B** | **67.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Anchor Browser | TinyFish |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Anchor Forge Inc. | Tiny Fish, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.anchorbrowser.io` | `https://agent.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| 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 service under Tiny Fish's terms of service. The MCP proxy `@tiny-fish/mcp` and the cookbook are MIT. The SDK packages state no licence in npm or PyPI metadata |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-07-28 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-02-24 | 2025-12-14 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 43k npm/wk, 10k PyPI/wk | 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/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.

**TinyFish.** OpenAPI documents are published for five APIs, errors carry typed codes and request IDs, and Search and Fetch are free within daily allowances. The terms let Tiny Fish train its models on customer data, run creation takes no idempotency keys, and the status page shows an hour or more of downtime on several days for the Browser and Search APIs.

## 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

### TinyFish

1. Check `result` as well as `status`. A run can be `COMPLETED` while the goal failed, with `result.status` set to `failure`
2. Don't retry `POST /v1/automation/run` blindly after a timeout. There are no idempotency keys, so list runs first to avoid duplicates
3. Use `/v1/automation/run-async` or `/run-sse` when a run may need cancelling. Runs started with the synchronous endpoint can't be cancelled
4. Allow 60 seconds for Browser session creation, connect Playwright to `cdp_url` (not `base_url`), and `DELETE` the session when done because billing is per minute
5. Never put passwords in `goal`, which is logged. Pass `use_vault: true` with `credential_item_ids`, or `use_profile: true` for saved login state

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Anchor Browser or TinyFish?

TinyFish and Anchor Browser score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.7 (B) and 67.3 (B). Anchor Browser leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

### Do Anchor Browser and TinyFish need an API key?

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

### Can an agent call Anchor Browser and TinyFish without installing anything?

Yes. Anchor Browser has a hosted endpoint at https://api.anchorbrowser.io and TinyFish at https://agent.tinyfish.ai.


## For agents

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

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