# Hyperbrowser vs Steel (slim)

> Steel scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Hyperbrowser's 66.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Hyperbrowser leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do browser automation. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbrowser-vs-steel.md (~2,450 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbrowser-vs-steel.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbrowser-vs-steel
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-08

Steel scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Hyperbrowser's 66.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Hyperbrowser leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do browser automation.

- Hyperbrowser: B 66.9, rank #205 of 629 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hyperbrowser.min.md
- Steel: BB 70.4, rank #129 of 629 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/steel.min.md
- Hyperbrowser, good for Agents that need a cloud browser by the minute plus cheap fetch and search, especially wallet-holding agents with no account. Ahead on Reliability, 65 against 58; Payments & pricing, 94 against 75.
- 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 68; Agent ergonomics, 79 against 67; Security & auth, 56 against 44. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Open source.

| Category | Hyperbrowser | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 65 | 58 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 68 | 86 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 79 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 44 | 56 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 94 | 75 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 79 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 64 | 64 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Hyperbrowser | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | S2 Labs Inc. | Nen Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.hyperbrowser.ai` | `https://api.steel.dev` |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| x402 | yes | yes, from $0.01/call |
| Licence | Proprietary service under S2 Labs' terms of service. The Node and Python SDKs and the MCP server are MIT, and HyperAgent is AGPL-3.0 | 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 | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2025-02-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-02-05 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | yes |
| Popularity | 89k npm/wk, 73k PyPI/wk | 47k npm/wk, 63k PyPI/wk |