# Playwright MCP vs TinyFish

> TinyFish and Playwright MCP score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.7 (B) and 67.6 (B). Playwright MCP leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do browser automation. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by…

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- Updated: 2026-10-09

TinyFish and Playwright MCP score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.7 (B) and 67.6 (B). Playwright MCP leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do browser automation.

- Playwright MCP: grade B, 67.6/100, rank #228 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/playwright-mcp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/playwright-mcp.json
- TinyFish: grade B, 67.7/100, rank #227 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tinyfish.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish.json

## Which one, for what

### 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 79
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 55
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 59

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

### TinyFish (B)

Good for: Agents that want one account for a goal-driven web agent, a raw CDP browser, and free search and fetch.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 85 against 70

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

Watch for: The terms of 17 August 2026 allow Tiny Fish to train and improve its models on customer data. No opt-out was found in the reviewed pages


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Playwright MCP | TinyFish | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 57 | 60 | TinyFish +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 85 | TinyFish +15 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 79 | Playwright MCP +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 57 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 55 | Playwright MCP +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 80 | Playwright MCP +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 59 | Playwright MCP +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.6 · B** | **67.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Playwright MCP | TinyFish |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | MCP server | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Microsoft | Tiny Fish, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://agent.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports | stdio, Streamable HTTP, SSE (legacy) | HTTP |
| Auth | None | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service under Tiny Fish's terms of service. The MCP proxy `@tiny-fish/mcp` and the cookbook are MIT. The SDK packages state no licence in npm or PyPI metadata |
| Tools exposed | 72 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.microsoft/playwright-mcp` | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-08-17 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2025-12-14 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 37k stars, 5.3M npm/wk | 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**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.

**TinyFish.** OpenAPI documents are published for five APIs, errors carry typed codes and request IDs, and Search and Fetch are free within daily allowances. The terms let Tiny Fish train its models on customer data, run creation takes no idempotency keys, and the status page shows an hour or more of downtime on several days for the Browser and Search APIs.

## Before you call either

### 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

### TinyFish

1. Check `result` as well as `status`. A run can be `COMPLETED` while the goal failed, with `result.status` set to `failure`
2. Don't retry `POST /v1/automation/run` blindly after a timeout. There are no idempotency keys, so list runs first to avoid duplicates
3. Use `/v1/automation/run-async` or `/run-sse` when a run may need cancelling. Runs started with the synchronous endpoint can't be cancelled
4. Allow 60 seconds for Browser session creation, connect Playwright to `cdp_url` (not `base_url`), and `DELETE` the session when done because billing is per minute
5. Never put passwords in `goal`, which is logged. Pass `use_vault: true` with `credential_item_ids`, or `use_profile: true` for saved login state

## Questions

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

TinyFish and Playwright MCP score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.7 (B) and 67.6 (B). Playwright MCP leads on agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust.

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

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

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

Playwright MCP runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. TinyFish has a hosted endpoint at https://agent.tinyfish.ai.

### Are Playwright MCP and TinyFish open source?

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


## For agents

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

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