# Notte vs Steel

> Steel scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Notte's 63.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do browser automation. Steel accepts x402. Notte doesn't. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-steel
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-steel.md (~2,350 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-steel.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-steel.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

Steel scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Notte's 63.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do browser automation. Steel accepts x402. Notte doesn't.

- 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
- Steel: grade BB, 70.4/100, rank #136 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/steel.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/steel.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.

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

### Steel (BB)

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 74
- Payments & pricing, 75 against 40

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account
- Runs on your own machine
- Open source

Watch for: Three incidents of more than an hour hit the API or session creation in the 90 days to 8 October 2026, the longest 5 hours 41 minutes


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Notte | Steel | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 58 | 58 | even |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 86 | Steel +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 79 | Steel +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 56 | 56 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 75 | Steel +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 82 | Notte +1 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 61 | 64 | Steel +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **63.2 · B** | **70.4 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Notte | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Notte Labs Inc. | Nen Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.notte.cc` | `https://api.steel.dev` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | yes, from $0.01/call |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under Notte's terms of service. The core repository is SSPL-1.0 and the Node SDK is MIT | 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 |
| Tools exposed | 8 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 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 | 1.3k npm/wk, 5.1k PyPI/wk | 47k npm/wk, 63k PyPI/wk |

## 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.

**Steel.** The hosted API has a public OpenAPI document, per-unit prices, $30 of starting credit and x402 payment for scrape, screenshot and PDF calls. The status page records three API or session-creation incidents of more than an hour in 90 days, and the documented CDP connection puts the API key in the URL.

## 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

### Steel

1. Use `POST /v1/scrape` for pages you only need to read. It starts no session and costs $5 per 1,000 calls, or $0.01 a call by x402
2. Release every session with `POST /v1/sessions/{id}/release` and set `inactivityTimeout`. Browser time bills by the minute, rounded up
3. Build the CDP URL as `wss://connect.steel.dev?apiKey=<key>&sessionId=<id>` and keep it out of logs, because it carries the key
4. Launch sessions end after 15 minutes at most, and `timeout` cannot be changed on a live session
5. CAPTCHA solving and Steel's managed proxies on Launch need $10 of paid balance. Free credit does not count

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Notte or Steel?

Steel scores 70.4 (BB) on agent readiness against Notte's 63.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Notte and Steel need an API key?

Notte takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Steel needs an API key. An agent can also pay Steel per call over x402, with no account.

### Can an agent call Notte and Steel without installing anything?

Yes. Notte has a hosted endpoint at https://api.notte.cc and Steel at https://api.steel.dev.

### Are Notte and Steel open source?

No open-source release is listed for Notte. Steel is open source (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).


## For agents

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

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