# Browserless vs Selenium

> Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) to Browserless's 70.4 (BB) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-selenium
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-selenium.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-selenium.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-selenium.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: 2026-10-14

Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Browserless's 70.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Browserless leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do browser automation.

- Browserless: grade BB, 70.4/100, rank #158 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/browserless.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/browserless.json
- Selenium: grade BB, 73.6/100, rank #90 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/selenium.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/selenium.json
- Best browser automation tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/browser/index.md
- All 120 browser comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browser/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Browserless (BB)

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:
- Agent ergonomics, 78 against 70
- Security & auth, 53 against 43

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: REST and WebSocket routes take the API token as `?token=` in the URL, which the docs give as the standard method

### Selenium (BB)

Good for: Agents that write test or automation scripts in any of five languages, and teams with a Grid.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 82
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Maintenance & community, 94 against 82
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 62

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: No MCP server from the project. The docs point to community servers and say they are third-party


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Browserless | Selenium | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 82 | 90 | Selenium +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 89 | even |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 78 | 70 | Browserless +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 53 | 43 | Browserless +10 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | Selenium +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 94 | Selenium +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 74 | Selenium +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.4 · BB** | **73.6 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Browserless | Selenium |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | SDK + MCP |
| Vendor | browserless.io, Inc. | Selenium project (Software Freedom Conservancy) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://production-sfo.browserless.io` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| 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 |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-05 | 2026-10-09 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 14k stars, 3.5k npm/wk | 35k stars, 1.8M npm/wk, 6.9M PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Browserless.** An OpenAPI document, llms.txt and a 14-tool MCP server with annotations on every tool make the service easy for an agent to read, and the free plan needs no card. The API token travels in the URL query string by default, cloud tokens carry no scopes, and no machine payment route exists.

**Selenium.** Selenium is stable, Apache-2.0 software on 4.51.0 with bindings in five languages, CI passing on trunk, an llms.txt and an agent guide added in September 2026. It has no MCP server of its own, Selenium Manager sends usage statistics by default, and Grid accepts unauthenticated sessions unless a username and password are set.

## Before you call either

### Browserless

1. Send the token as `Authorization: Bearer` to the MCP server. On REST and WebSocket routes it goes in `?token=`, so keep those URLs out of logs
2. Close sessions as soon as the work is done. Browser time bills one unit per 30 seconds, rounded up, idle or not
3. For multi-step work with `browserless_agent`, set `keepSessionAlive: true` on the first call and pass the returned `sessionId` after that. Sessions are one-shot by default since server 1.33.0
4. On 429, back off and retry. It means the plan's concurrency limit or queue is full, usually from sessions left open
5. Match the path to the protocol. Use `/chromium` for CDP clients and `/chromium/playwright` only for `playwright.connect()`

### Selenium

1. Install with `pip install selenium` (Python 3.10 or later) and let Selenium Manager fetch drivers. Do not set driver paths
2. Use `WebDriverWait` with expected conditions, never fixed sleeps, and do not mix implicit and explicit waits
3. Set `SE_AVOID_STATS=true` to stop Selenium Manager sending usage statistics
4. Point coding agents at https://www.selenium.dev/llms.txt. Most Selenium 2 and 3 era examples use removed APIs
5. Set `--username` and `--password` before exposing a Grid beyond localhost. Check `http://localhost:4444/status` before creating sessions

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Browserless or Selenium?

Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Browserless's 70.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Browserless leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth.

### Can an agent call Browserless and Selenium without installing anything?

Browserless has a hosted endpoint at https://production-sfo.browserless.io. No hosted endpoint is listed for Selenium.

### Are Browserless and Selenium open source?

No open-source release is listed for Browserless. Selenium is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Browserless or Selenium

- [agent-browser vs Browserless](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-browserless.md)
- [agent-browser vs Selenium](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-selenium.md)
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- [Browserless vs Playwright MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-playwright-mcp.md)
- [Browserless vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Browserless vs Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-puppeteer-reference-server-archived.md)
- [Browserless vs Skyvern](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-skyvern.md)
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- [Playwright MCP vs Selenium](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/playwright-mcp-vs-selenium.md)
- [Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) vs Selenium](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-reference-server-archived-vs-selenium.md)
- [Puppeteer vs Selenium](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-selenium.md)
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- [Selenium vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/selenium-vs-tinyfish.md)
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