# Kernel vs Pomerado (slim)

> Kernel scores 66.9 (B) to Pomerado's 62.5 (B) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kernel-vs-pomerado.md (~5,450 tokens) · this version ~3,180 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kernel-vs-pomerado.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/kernel-vs-pomerado
- 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 Pomerado's 62.5 (B), and leads in every scored category. Both do browser automation.

- Kernel: B 66.9, rank #351 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/kernel.min.md
- Pomerado: B 62.5, rank #553 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pomerado.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 Reliability, 53 against 40; Schema & documentation, 93 against 86; Security & auth, 81 against 69; Payments & pricing, 65 against 42; Maintenance & community, 90 against 81; Transparency & trust, 61 against 53.
- Pomerado, good for An agent that repeats the same task on consumer sites or portals, such as flight searches, carts or order history, and wants a typed call instead of driving a browser. Also Free to start without a card; Open source.

| Category | Kernel | Pomerado |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 53 | 40 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 93 | 86 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 84 | 83 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 81 | 69 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 65 | 42 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 90 | 81 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 53 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Kernel | Pomerado |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Kernel Technologies, Inc. | Pomerado AI, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://mcp.onkernel.com/mcp` | `https://mcp.pomerado.ai/mcp` |
| Transports | Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Licence | none | Pomerado Cloud is a proprietary service under Pomerado's terms of service. The minting core in Pomerado/pomerado and the `pomerado` npm package are MIT from version 0.2.0, and versions 0.1.2 and earlier were AGPL-3.0-only |
| Tools exposed | 32 | 14 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `com.onkernel/kernel-mcp-server` | `ai.pomerado/pomerado` |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-01 | 2026-10-04 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-15 | 2026-10-16 |
| Popularity | none | 37k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (4) |

Why the edge:
- Payments & pricing, Kernel +23: 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.); Pomerado 42 (No x402, MPP or L402 on Pomerado's endpoints (0). Plan prices are public, Free $0, Premium $50 a month and Business custom, with call and build allowances, but there is no per-call price (10). The Free plan and keyless use need no card (20). An agent can find and run 584 public read-only tools across 447 sites with no account (46 across 23 on 17 October), but writes, logins and builds need an account that a person approves, through OAuth or a device code, so partial credit (12 of 20).)
- Reliability, Kernel +13: 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.); Pomerado 40 (Graded as a hosted service, Pomerado Cloud, since the MCP and REST docs and the homepage's setup prompt point agents to it. No status page found on 2 November. status.pomerado.ai still doesn't resolve, and none is linked from the site, the docs or llms.txt (0). No readable incident history (5). Daily allowances are published with numbers (100 or 1,000 tool runs a day, 10 or 100 integrations a month), keyless runs have a daily limit, and 20 connect keys an hour, but no per-second or per-minute request rate was found (10 of 15). Over a limit the API answers 429 `quota_exceeded` with `reset_at`, or `try_limit_reached` with Retry-After, every error carries `retryable`, retryable MCP errors add `retry_after_seconds`, and runs, builds and invitations take idempotency keys with `write_status` and `outcome_unknown` for writes whose result is unclear (15). Business lists SLA guarantees, with no published terms (0). No beta or preview label on the hosted MCP or API, and the registry entry is version 1.0.0 (10). 0 + 5 + 10 + 15 + 0 + 10 = 40.)
- Security & auth, Kernel +12: 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.); Pomerado 69 (OAuth for MCP clients, and `pom_` API keys limited to chosen permissions out of 11, expiring after 90 days by default, rotated and revoked through the API, with integration keys confined to one site's MCP. No secret travels in a URL; the keyless URL refuses a key (30). The read-only run refuses a tool that writes before a job starts, builds declare read or write, write tools carry destructiveHint, website logins go through a protected page, and a key can't reveal a saved password or authenticator code. No approval step of Pomerado's own for writes was found beyond the client's own prompt (16). Tools return website content. The job-object page says to treat a job's `message` as data, never as instructions, and outputs are checked against each tool's schema, but no wider guidance on untrusted page text was found (6). Run logs list each browser action and the site's own requests, kept 90 days, builds have an activity log, and connected apps show permissions used and last use (13). No security.txt, SOC 2, ISO 27001 or bug bounty found. The homepage footer now links a trust centre at trust.pomerado.ai, whose robots.txt answers with its script-drawn app page, so it wasn't read and nothing on it is credited. The README sends reports to GitHub private vulnerability reporting, and the terms commit to notify customers of incidents without undue delay (4). Pomerado stores website passwords, authenticator secrets and recovery codes, which raises the stakes of that gap.)
- Maintenance & community, Kernel +9: 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.); Pomerado 81 (The repository's newest tag is v0.4.0-canary.493 on 29 October 2026, with main merged to 1 November, and the API's Changes entry is of 15 October (30). Releases 0.1.0 to 0.2.0 between 5 and 6 October, 0.3.0 closed in the changelog on 7 October, and 34 tags in all, most of them canaries (20). 1,396 commits on main from 17 October to 1 November, nearly all by the two founders. GitHub issues and replies couldn't be read, because GitHub's pages and API answer 403 in this session, so this rests on the commit history and the founders' email address (8 of 25). In the official MCP registry as `ai.pomerado/pomerado`, a domain-verified namespace, version 1.0.0, active since 15 October 2026, re-read on 2 November (15). CI runs a gitleaks secret scan, pins actions by SHA and publishes with npm provenance, per the 17 October check. Run results couldn't be read (8 of 10). 30 + 20 + 8 + 15 + 8 = 81.)
- Transparency & trust, Kernel +8: Kernel 61 (The platform is closed under a published master services agreement; the MCP server is MIT (20). The privacy policy names Stripe and Google Analytics and an advertising cookie, and states retention as long as needed, with replay retention per plan and zero data retention on Enterprise (18). Deprecated MCP inputs stay as aliases and the changelog notes removals, but no deprecation policy (10). No sub-processor list found; compliance reports sit behind the trust centre (10). 20 + 18 + 10 + 10 = 58.); Pomerado 53 (The hosted service is closed with clear terms (Common Paper Cloud Service Agreement 2.1, last updated 4 October 2026), and the complete minting core is MIT on GitHub, which the README says the Cloud runs (24). The privacy policy is an iubenda embed whose path iubenda's robots.txt disallows, so it was not read. The homepage FAQ says results are erased once read or within 60 minutes, credentials are kept only if saved, and hashes of sign-in identifiers are retained, and the API docs keep run logs for 90 days. No public DPA found (10 of 30). No deprecation policy found. The tool docs promise that a repair never removes or loosens an output field unless the site stopped showing it and the person confirms, and the terms give 30 days' notice of price changes (7). No subprocessor list or data location found. The open-source README says builds use OpenAI models (2).)
- Schema & documentation, Kernel +7: 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.); Pomerado 86 (OpenAPI 3.1 at /v1/openapi.json with 90 operations on 71 paths on 2 November (84 on 66 on 17 October), and every MCP tool on the keyless endpoint has a typed JSON Schema input with `additionalProperties: false` (25). llms.txt with every page, and a Markdown twin of each docs page (10). MCP descriptions say when to use each tool and when not to, such as Pomerado before a browser, the read-only run for read tools, `possible_matches` before a build, and secrets on `answer_url`, not in chat. The server's instructions say to use a browser only if Pomerado says it can't build a tool (18). 184 enums, lengths and ranges such as `limit` 1 to 100 and keys of 1 to 200 characters, and required fields marked. The run and build tools take `input` and `example_input` as JSON-encoded strings over MCP (11). 59 of 90 operations carry examples, all 90 document error responses, and the errors page gives 157 codes, each with its status, whether to retry and what to do (14). Paths are versioned `/v1`. The API reference still has a dated Changes list with one entry, of 15 October 2026, though six operations were added since, and the open-source core keeps CHANGELOG.md with breaking-change sections (8 of 15).)