# Kernel vs Lightpanda (slim)

> Kernel scores 66.9 (B) to Lightpanda's 56.2 (C) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kernel-vs-lightpanda.md (~5,650 tokens) · this version ~3,330 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kernel-vs-lightpanda.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kernel-vs-lightpanda
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Kernel scores 66.9 (B) on agent readiness against Lightpanda's 56.2 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Lightpanda leads on reliability. Both do browser automation.

- Kernel: B 66.9, rank #351 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kernel.min.md
- Lightpanda: C 56.2, rank #837 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lightpanda.min.md
- Kernel, good for Agents that need hosted, logged-in browsers at scale with stealth and proxies. browserbase, steel, hyperbrowser and anchor-browser are the nearest listings. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 93 against 82; Agent ergonomics, 84 against 75; Security & auth, 81 against 46; Payments & pricing, 65 against 40; Maintenance & community, 90 against 73. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.
- Lightpanda, good for Agents and crawlers that read and fill many JavaScript pages in parallel on small machines, without needing pixel rendering. Ahead on Reliability, 68 against 53. Also No key needed to call it; Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card; Open source.

| Category | Kernel | Lightpanda |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 53 | 68 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 93 | 82 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 84 | 75 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 81 | 46 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 65 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 90 | 73 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 65 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Kernel | Lightpanda |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Kernel Technologies, Inc. | Selecy SAS (Lightpanda) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.onkernel.com/mcp` | no (local only) |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Licence | none | AGPL-3.0 for the browser. The npm wrapper @lightpanda/browser and the agent skill are Apache-2.0. Lightpanda Cloud is a closed service with no terms of service found |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.onkernel/kernel-mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-23 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-01 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-15 | 2026-08-03 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not read yet |
| Popularity | none | 9.3k npm/wk |

Why the edge:
- Security & auth, Kernel +35: Kernel 81 (Scoped API keys with resource and action policies, project scoping and expiry, and OAuth 2.1 for MCP with project-limited tokens (30). Least privilege through scoped keys, a payment cap for cards through the MCP server and vault writes that need their own action (16). Pages an agent browses are untrusted, and we found no prompt-injection guidance in the docs read (4). Audit log search and export on Start-Up and above (13). SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, PCI DSS and ISO 27001 on the security page and a HackerOne bounty (18). 30 + 16 + 4 + 13 + 18 = 81, before the deduction for the November 2026 incident.); Lightpanda 46 (Graded on the local browser, with the cloud's documented token handling counted. No credential is needed locally, the servers bind 127.0.0.1 by default and `serve --unix-socket` gives an owner-only socket, but the CDP and HTTP MCP servers have no authentication at all when bound wider, and the MCP docs show `--host 0.0.0.0` (18 of 30). Lightpanda Cloud's docs pass the API token as `?token=` in the CDP, MCP and mcp-remote URLs as the standard route, a secret in a query string (minus 10). CORS on by default since 1.0, sub-resources off unless asked for, and `--block-private-networks`, `--block-cidrs`, `--block-urls` and adblock lists, all opt-in apart from CORS. No domain allowlist or confirmation step for clicks or form submits (12 of 20). The MCP `initialize` instructions tell the model to treat page content as untrusted and not to follow URLs a page suggests, and `$LP_*` placeholders keep credentials out of the model's context. `getEnv` with a name returns a secret's value (10 of 15). Logs go to stderr with levels that show requests and navigations, and the cloud console lists sessions with logs. No persistent audit log locally (8 of 15). SECURITY.md with a private address, fixes on main only, release binaries with SHA-256 digests checked by the install script and Homebrew, and hardening listed in the 1.0 post. No security.txt, bug bounty, certification or readable advisory list (8 of 20). 18-10+12+10+8+8 = 46.)
- Payments & pricing, Kernel +25: Kernel 65 (MPP on POST /mpp/browsers, a 402 challenge paid with a Stripe shared payment token through Link, covering one browser product only, not the API or MCP server (20). Per-second prices public without a login (20). The Developer plan is free with $5 of monthly credit, but whether signup needs a card wasn't stated on the pages read (10). Through MPP an agent gets a browser with no account or key, though a person approves each Link payment (15). 20 + 20 + 10 + 15 = 65.); Lightpanda 40 (Open-source software with a hosted option, so pricing is scored on Lightpanda Cloud, as browserless's was. No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices and the $0.08 per browser-hour overage are published without login (20). Explorer is $0 with 10 browser hours a month, and the sign-up form asks only for an email address (20). A person signs up in a browser and receives the token by email (0). 0+20+20+0 = 40.)
- Maintenance & community, Kernel +17: Kernel 90 (The changelog's latest entry is 16 October 2026 and the MCP server repository has commits on 6 November (30). More than three dated changes in 90 days, scoped keys, memory tiers, GPU tier and card payments among them (20). A closed service with a public changelog, Discord, email support and an open-source MCP server with 210 commits since 8 August (15). Official SDKs in three languages, and the MCP server in the registry as com.onkernel/kernel-mcp-server 1.1.0 (15). CI and tests in the MCP repository (10). 30 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 = 90.); Lightpanda 73 (1.0.2 on 23 October 2026, from Docker Hub's tag date and the Homebrew formula (30). 0.3.7, 0.4.0, 0.4.1, 1.0.0, 1.0.1 and 1.0.2 between 16 August and 23 October 2026, plus nightly builds (20). GitHub issues and pull requests weren't readable from our network. The vendor reports 3,148 merged pull requests and 76 contributors on 19 October, the 1.0 post says two issues from one customer were fixed before it switched, and there is a Discord server. Scored on that indirect evidence (12 of 25). Not in the official MCP registry, where a search for lightpanda returned nothing. The Docker `latest` tag and Homebrew are current, and the npm wrapper's last release was 1.6.0 on 31 August (5 of 15). Dependencies are pinned in build.zig.zon and the 1.0 post says V8 is at the latest stable 15.5. CI results unread (6 of 10). 30+20+12+5+6 = 73.)
- Reliability, Lightpanda +15: Kernel 53 (Hosted reading. status.kernel.sh on incident.io with a public incident feed (20). In the 90 days from 8 August it lists browser connection failures on 10 September (54 minutes, major), frozen popups on 1 October (71 minutes, major), elevated API errors on 19 October (4 minutes, critical), proxy failures on 23 October (65 minutes, major) and browser creation errors on 4 November (29 minutes, major), plus minor ones. Several majors, two of them an hour or more (0). Rate limits are per organisation with headers on every response, and concurrency is published per plan, but the create-rate numbers aren't (8). 429 with Retry-After, SDK retries with a typed error, safe retry with the same MPP credential and 409 on concurrent pool changes (15). The terms mention service levels in an order form but no public SLA was found (0). The API and MCP server carry no beta label (10). 20 + 0 + 8 + 15 + 0 + 10 = 53.); Lightpanda 68 (Scored as local software, on the open-source browser. Official Docker image (amd64 and arm64), a Homebrew formula and AUR package at 1.0.2, .deb packages, an npm wrapper and a pip package, with supported platforms stated (Linux glibc x86_64 and aarch64, macOS, WSL2 for Windows). The README's Homebrew line, its download links and the install script all default to nightly builds (18 of 20). Public CI runs `zig fmt`, unit tests and end-to-end tests through a proxy on every push to main, and WPT results are published daily. A clone on 2 November shows the same workflows (zig-test, e2e-test, e2e-integration-test, wpt and others). Whether recent runs passed is unread, because github.com and the GitHub API are unreachable from our network, so the line takes 15, as other listings with an unread pass state (15 of 25). The issue tracker went unread for the same reason. The vendor's 1.0 post lists dozens of use-after-free and double-free fixes, a crash handler reports crashes, and the agent skill tells agents to reinstall the nightly when crashes occur, so we score this line on thin evidence (10 of 25). Semver tags from 0.3.2 to 1.0.2, and the 1.0 post calls out the CORS default change with the flag to undo it. Release notes on GitHub went unread and there is no CHANGELOG file (10 of 15). 1.0.0 on 2 October 2026 is declared out of beta and stable enough for production (15). 18+15+10+10+15 = 68.)
- Schema & documentation, Kernel +11: Kernel 93 (OpenAPI at kernel.sh/openapi.json and per-endpoint Markdown reference (25). llms.txt with 423 entries and a Markdown twin for each page (10). Endpoint descriptions say when to use alternatives ("For interactive browsing, use GET /audit-logs", pools for bursty traffic) (17). Typed parameters with enums and limits such as memory sizes and timeout maximums (13). Code samples in TypeScript, Python and Go, and documented status codes such as 409 and 204 on pool acquire (13). A dated public changelog and SDK changelogs (15). 25 + 10 + 17 + 13 + 13 + 15 = 93.); Lightpanda 82 (Graded on the MCP server at 1.0.2, read from source. Every tool declares a JSON Schema input, and page-changing tools declare an `outputSchema` for `url`, `httpStatus` and `title` (25). llms.txt indexes 46 docs pages and 31 blog posts, but its docs `llms-full.txt` link returns 404 and the docs have no Markdown twins (7 of 10). Descriptions state purpose and when to prefer another tool (`html` "Verbose; use only when you need attributes that markdown discards", `evaluate` as an escape hatch), and `initialize` returns a driving guide (18 of 20). Enums for load states, required lists and `maxBytes` caps, but `extract` takes its selector spec as a JSON string and `evaluate` takes arbitrary JavaScript (11 of 15). JSON-RPC request and result examples, `extract` schema examples and a known-behaviours section, with no error catalogue (11 of 15). Semver tags and release notes linked from the blog, which we couldn't read, no CHANGELOG file, and a docs tool reference that matches 1.0.2 but not main (10 of 15). 25+7+18+11+11+10 = 82.)
- Agent ergonomics, Kernel +9: Kernel 84 (Graded mainly on the API, with the MCP server noted. Responses are scoped per resource and the MCP server groups actions into about 32 tools (18). List endpoints page with limit and offset and filter by status (18). Typed SDK errors and documented 409 on concurrent changes, 204 on a pool timeout and 429 (17). Retrying an MPP purchase with the same credential returns the same browser, and the MCP tools carry readOnlyHint where read-only (16). SDKs in TypeScript, Python and Go plus a CLI, with defaults such as a 60-second timeout (15). 18 + 18 + 17 + 16 + 15 = 84.); Lightpanda 75 (32 MCP tools at 1.0.2 with no profiles or dynamic loading (5). The CLI `fetch` and the CDP server reach the same browser with no tool definitions in context, so we add back 5 (10 of 25). `markdown`, `html` and `screenshot` take `selector`, `backendNodeId`, `maxBytes` and `strip`, `links` takes `limit`, `tree` takes `maxDepth`, and read tools accept `url` to navigate and read in one call (20). Errors come back with `isError`, navigation failures name the cause (`navigation failed: CouldntResolveHost`), and `structuredContent` carries `httpStatus`. The docs warn that a 404 page or a timeout is still reported as success. No list of error codes (14 of 20). Every tool carries readOnlyHint, destructiveHint, idempotentHint and openWorldHint chosen per tool in an exhaustive switch, and nothing needs an idempotency key on a local browser (18 of 20). Most tools need one argument or none, and official packages exist for Node (npm wrapper) and Python (pip). The PyPI page answered a bot check, so the Python package's state went unread (13 of 15). 10+20+14+18+13 = 75.)