# Browserless vs BxPlaywright (slim)

> Browserless scores 67.9 (B) to BxPlaywright's 55 (C) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-bx-playwright.md (~5,850 tokens) · this version ~3,530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-bx-playwright.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-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
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Browserless scores 67.9 (B) 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.

- Browserless: B 67.9, rank #234 of 1260 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/browserless.min.md
- BxPlaywright: C 55, rank #816 of 1260 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bx-playwright.min.md
- Browserless, 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 Reliability, 82 against 41; Schema & documentation, 89 against 66; Agent ergonomics, 78 against 63; Security & auth, 53 against 43; Maintenance & community, 85 against 53. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Runs on your own machine; 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 40; Transparency & trust, 70 against 64. Also No key needed to call it; Open source; No incidents deducted, where Browserless loses 3 points for them.

| Category | Browserless | BxPlaywright |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 82 | 41 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 89 | 66 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 78 | 63 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 53 | 43 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 53 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 64 | 70 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Browserless | BxPlaywright |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | browserless.io, Inc. | Ortus Solutions |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://production-sfo.browserless.io` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |  |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| Licence | SSPL 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 | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 14 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.browserless/mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-30 | 2026-10-23 |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 14k stars, 3.5k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Reliability, Browserless +41: Browserless 82 (Graded as a hosted service, on the cloud API and its hosted MCP server. status.browserless.io runs on Better Stack with eight monitored components and 90 days of daily history (20). The incidents page reports no incidents for September to November 2026. Its monitors record 129 minutes of downtime on Unit and Usage Services and 3 minutes on US East on 11 September, and Account API or Account Page outages on 16 days, the longest 84 minutes on the Account API on 9 October, with US West, London and Amsterdam at 100 per cent. None takes down a browser region, so minor only (20). Concurrency and session-length limits are published per plan, 2 to 100 browsers and 2 to 60 minutes, and the docs say there is no hourly or daily unit limit (15). 429 is documented as a full concurrency slot or queue, with a retry and exponential backoff guide and advice to retry only operations that are safe to run twice. No Retry-After header or idempotency key was found in the reviewed documentation (12). One docs page claims a 99.9% uptime SLA and the site lists SLAs under Enterprise, but no SLA terms are published (5). The REST, WebSocket and MCP surfaces are generally available, with the MCP server at 1.42.0 (10).); 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.)
- Maintenance & community, Browserless +32: Browserless 85 (@browserless.io/mcp 1.42.0 was tagged on 29 October 2026 and the core server 2.58.1 on 30 October (30). The repositories hold 33 MCP and 16 core release tags dated in the 90 days from 3 August, and the product changelog has an entry for October 2026 (20). Both repositories show commits on 30 October 2026 and use release automation. GitHub's pages and API refused our requests, so issue reply times went unread, and we scored the public changelogs and the support email only (12). Since 16 October the MCP server is in the official MCP registry under the verified namespace io.browserless/mcp, with 1.42.0 as its latest entry (15). Test, lint, CodeQL and dependency-update workflows are in the repositories. We did not read their run results (8).); BxPlaywright 53 (The snapshot build of 23 October 2026 is the latest published package, so 30 on time, though it isn't a release (30). No tagged releases or dated changelog entries in the 90 days, only one version rebuilt (0 of 20). 39 pull requests merged by Luis Majano between 30 September and 23 October. Issue replies couldn't be read and bugs go to Jira (10 of 25). Not in the official MCP registry, and the ForgeBox package has no stable version (5 of 15). Playwright for Java 1.63.0, Dependabot for Gradle monthly and Actions quarterly, a daily test run and a format check (8 of 10). 30+0+10+5+8 = 53.)
- Schema & documentation, Browserless +23: Browserless 89 (OpenAPI 3.0.0 at www.browserless.io/swagger.json with 92 paths and 106 operations (version 2.58.1), and Zod-typed inputs on every MCP tool in the source (25). llms.txt, llms-full.txt, a Markdown twin of every docs page, an API catalogue and an MCP server card under /.well-known (10). MCP descriptions state purpose and point to the right neighbour, for example `browserless_smartscraper` sends multi-page work to `browserless_crawl`. The agent tool's description is a long operating prompt (16). Inputs use enums and limits, but `browserless_function` takes free-form Puppeteer code and `browserless_agent` advertises a slimmed schema that the server re-validates at run time (12). Every OpenAPI operation lists 400, 401, 403, 404, 408, 429, 500 and 503, the docs carry an error table with fixes, and examples come in cURL, JavaScript and Python (13). A monthly product changelog and semver changelogs for the core (2.58.1) and MCP (1.42.0) repositories. REST paths carry no version (13).); 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.)
- Payments & pricing, BxPlaywright +20: Browserless 40 (No x402, MPP or L402 on any endpoint. The Stripe Link checkout tools let an agent pay a merchant and are not a way to pay Browserless (0). Plan prices, included units and per-unit overage rates of $0.0015 to $0.0020 are published without login, with the unit defined as up to 30 seconds of browser time (20). Free plan with 1,000 units a month, and the pricing page says no card is required (20). A person has to sign up in a browser to get a token or complete OAuth (0).); 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.)
- Agent ergonomics, Browserless +15: Browserless 78 (The full MCP server documents 14 tools (15), and a separate connector endpoint exposes five read-only tools. The `browserless_agent` description is long, so we added back 5 of a possible 10 (20). `browserless_logs` pages by cursor, search, crawl and profiles take `limit`, crawl output is truncated per page, and Smart Scrape returns only the formats asked for (17). Errors come with a documented table of causes and fixes, a `requestId` that can be looked up in request logs, and `x-response-code` headers for the target site's status (16). Every MCP tool in the source carries `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint`, and account tools add `idempotentHint`. No idempotency keys, and the docs warn that a retried mutation can repeat a click or form submission (15). Few required parameters and existing Puppeteer or Playwright scripts connect by changing the endpoint, but the only published SDK is TypeScript. The docs say the Python SDK is not on PyPI yet (10).); 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.)
- Security & auth, Browserless +10: Browserless 53 (An account holds up to 20 named API tokens, each shown once and revocable on its own, with a rotation guide. The hosted MCP server also accepts OAuth sign-in with PKCE. Cloud tokens have no scopes, and token roles apply only to self-hosted Enterprise containers (22). The docs give `?token=` in the URL as the standard way to authenticate REST and WebSocket calls and as an option for MCP, a secret in a query string (minus 10). The connector endpoint limits an assistant to five tools, account tools are read-only, the agent prompt tells the model to confirm controls marked destructive, and the draft Stripe Link checkout needs the buyer's approval for each purchase up to $50. No read-only token (10). Pages are untrusted content. Saved logins and card details are kept out of the model's context, but no prompt-injection guidance was found in the docs or the MCP agent prompt (3). Request logs record every request with endpoint, region, duration, error and cost, filterable by API key, and sessions can be replayed (13). SOC 2 Type II, third-party penetration tests and a disclosure policy with a 72-hour acknowledgement target on the trust centre. No security.txt and no bug bounty found (15).); 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.)