# Notte vs Playwright MCP

> Playwright MCP scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against Notte's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do browser automation. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-playwright-mcp
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-playwright-mcp.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-playwright-mcp.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-playwright-mcp.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: 2026-10-08

Playwright MCP scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against Notte's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do browser automation.

- Notte: grade B, 63.2/100, rank #317 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/notte.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/notte.json
- Playwright MCP: grade B, 67.6/100, rank #203 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/playwright-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/playwright-mcp.json

## Which one, for what

### Notte (B)

Good for: Teams that want hosted browsers together with agents, vaults for logins, personas with mailboxes and scheduled browser functions behind one key.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: status.notte.cc shows the Scrape API down on 15 of 90 days (about 6 hours in total) and CAPTCHA solving at 88.9 per cent availability

### Playwright MCP (B)

Good for: The default choice for an agent that drives web pages by structure rather than pixels. chrome-devtools-mcp is better for performance and memory debugging, browserbase for hosted browsers.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 84 against 75
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 61

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: `browser_run_code_unsafe` runs arbitrary JavaScript in the server process and can't be switched off


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Notte | Playwright MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 58 | 57 | Notte +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 70 | Notte +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 84 | Playwright MCP +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 57 | Playwright MCP +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | Playwright MCP +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 84 | Playwright MCP +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 72 | Playwright MCP +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.2 · B** | **67.6 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Notte | Playwright MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | MCP server |
| Vendor | Notte Labs Inc. | Microsoft |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.notte.cc` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under Notte's terms of service. The core repository is SSPL-1.0 and the Node SDK is MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 8 | 72 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.microsoft/playwright-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-09-28 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read |  |
| Popularity | 1.3k npm/wk, 5.1k PyPI/wk | 37k stars, 5.3M npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Notte.** Notte publishes an OpenAPI 3.1 contract for 100 operations, a hosted MCP server with eight tools and OAuth, and a free plan with $10 of credits and no card. Its status page records about six hours of Scrape API downtime in 90 days, and a bot check blocked our read of the terms and privacy policy.

**Playwright MCP.** Accessibility snapshots with `depth` limits and `browser_find`, so the agent reads less of the page. `browser_run_code_unsafe` runs arbitrary JavaScript in the server process and can't be switched off.

## Before you call either

### Notte

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer $NOTTE_API_KEY` to https://api.notte.cc. A person creates the key in the console at console.notte.cc first
2. Stop every session when the task ends. Sessions close after 3 idle minutes or 15 minutes in total by default, and the Free plan caps a session at 15 minutes
3. Use https://api.notte.cc/mcp for browser work. Function and agent administration tools are only on https://api.notte.cc/mcp/full
4. Back off on 429 and on 529, which means the cluster has too many sessions. The SDKs do not retry rate limits for you
5. Download session replays within 24 hours. The recordings page says they are deleted after that

### Playwright MCP

1. Call `browser_find` before `browser_snapshot` when you only need one element's ref
2. Pass `depth` or a `target` to `browser_snapshot` on large pages
3. Run with `--isolated` for untrusted sites. The default profile persists cookies between runs
4. Add `--caps` only for the groups the task needs. Each group adds tools to the schema
5. Pin a version in `npx @playwright/mcp@<version>`. 0.0.x releases can rename tools

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Notte or Playwright MCP?

Playwright MCP scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against Notte's 63.2 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Notte and Playwright MCP need an API key?

Notte takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Playwright MCP needs no key.

### Can an agent call Notte and Playwright MCP without installing anything?

Notte has a hosted endpoint at https://api.notte.cc. Playwright MCP runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.

### Are Notte and Playwright MCP open source?

No open-source release is listed for Notte. Playwright MCP is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

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