Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run
Browserbase vs Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)
Browserbase has a score of 76.6 (BB) against Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)'s 30.8 (F). Both do browser automation. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 92 points. Browserbase accepts x402. Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) doesn't.
Which one, for what
Pick Browserbase for
- reliability (+78)
- schema & documentation (+39)
- agent ergonomics (+28)
- security & auth (+21)
- payments & pricing (+30)
- maintenance & community (+92)
Pick Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) for
No category where it leads by five points or more.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Browserbase | Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 90 | 12 | Browserbase +78 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 80 | 41 | Browserbase +39 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 75 | 47 | Browserbase +28 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 43 | 22 | Browserbase +21 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 90 | 60 | Browserbase +30 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 92 | 0 | Browserbase +92 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 75 | 77 | Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| Total | 76.6 · BB | 30.8 · F |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Browserbase | Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Browserbase | Model Context Protocol (archived) |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.browserbase.com/v1 | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | stdio |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | yes | no |
| Licence | MIT (Stagehand) | MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 7 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-09 | 2025-05-12 |
| Popularity | 25k stars | 294 stars, 25k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.4/5 (8) | 1/5 (2) |
Verdicts
Browserbase
x402 sessions at x402.browserbase.com with no account, $0.12 an hour, unused minutes refunded. The hosted MCP setup page passes the API key as ?browserbaseApiKey= in the URL.
Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)
Seven tools in about 700 tokens, every input with a required list. Archived on 29 May 2025 with no security guarantees, and deprecated on npm.
Before you call either
Browserbase
- Use x402.browserbase.com when you have a wallet and no key. Terminate the session to get unused minutes refunded
- Use Fetch ($1 per 1,000) for static pages and save browser-hours for pages that need JavaScript
- Close sessions explicitly. Each session bills at least one minute, and idle ones keep billing
- Set
recordSessionandlogSessionto false when pages hold personal data - On 429, wait
retry-afterseconds before creating another session
Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)
- Don't install it for new work. playwright-mcp covers the same tasks with snapshots and annotations
- If you inherit a config for it, set ALLOW_DANGEROUS to false and never pass
allowDangerous - Never run it with a logged-in profile or on a host with internal services the browser can reach
Other comparisons with Browserbase or Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)
Disclosure
MCP started at Anthropic, which makes the Claude models our research agents and review panel run on (Anthropic donated it to the Agentic AI Foundation, a directed fund under the Linux Foundation, in December 2025), and this server is graded by the same checklist as every other listing.