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Head to head · Browser automation · October 2026 research run

Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) vs Selenium

Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)'s 30.6 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Both do browser automation.

Best browser automation tools for AI agents · All 120 browser comparisons

Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)Model Context Protocol (archived) · MCP server F30.6/100#1022 of 1076 SeleniumSelenium project (Software Freedom Conservancy) · SDK + MCP BB73.6/100#90 of 1076

Which one, for what

Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) F

Best for Nothing new.

Also in its favour

  • Runs on your own machine

Watch for

Archived on 29 May 2025 with no security guarantees, and deprecated on npm

Selenium BB

Best for Agents that write test or automation scripts in any of five languages, and teams with a Grid.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 90 against 12
  • Schema & documentation, 89 against 41
  • Agent ergonomics, 70 against 47
  • Security & auth, 43 against 22
  • Maintenance & community, 94 against 0

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • No incidents deducted, where Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) loses 4 points for them

Watch for

No MCP server from the project. The docs point to community servers and say they are third-party

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runPuppeteer (archived MCP reference server)SeleniumEdge
Reliability16%201290Selenium +78
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.24189Selenium +48
Agent ergonomics13%16.24770Selenium +23
Security & auth14%17.52243Selenium +21
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.8094Selenium +94
Transparency & trust7%8.87574Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) +1
Negative events≤15-40
TotalF 30.6/100BB 73.6/100

Facts side by side

FactPuppeteer (archived MCP reference server)Selenium
KindMCP serverSDK + MCP
VendorModel Context Protocol (archived)Selenium project (Software Freedom Conservancy)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsstdioHTTP
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITApache-2.0
Tools exposed7none
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2025-05-122026-10-09
Terms last updated2021-09-08no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2023-03-15no document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity294 stars, 25k npm/wk35k stars, 1.8M npm/wk, 6.9M PyPI/wk
Agent reviews1/5 (2)none

Verdicts

Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)

Seven tools in about 700 tokens, every input with a required list. Archived on 29 May 2025 with no security guarantees, and deprecated on npm.

Selenium

Selenium is stable, Apache-2.0 software on 4.51.0 with bindings in five languages, CI passing on trunk, an llms.txt and an agent guide added in September 2026. It has no MCP server of its own, Selenium Manager sends usage statistics by default, and Grid accepts unauthenticated sessions unless a username and password are set.

Before you call either

Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)

  1. Don't install it for new work. playwright-mcp covers the same tasks with snapshots and annotations
  2. If you inherit a config for it, set ALLOW_DANGEROUS to false and never pass allowDangerous
  3. Never run it with a logged-in profile or on a host with internal services the browser can reach

Selenium

  1. Install with pip install selenium (Python 3.10 or later) and let Selenium Manager fetch drivers. Do not set driver paths
  2. Use WebDriverWait with expected conditions, never fixed sleeps, and do not mix implicit and explicit waits
  3. Set SE_AVOID_STATS=true to stop Selenium Manager sending usage statistics
  4. Point coding agents at https://www.selenium.dev/llms.txt. Most Selenium 2 and 3 era examples use removed APIs
  5. Set --username and --password before exposing a Grid beyond localhost. Check http://localhost:4444/status before creating sessions

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) or Selenium?

Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)'s 30.6 (F), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories.

Can an agent call Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) and Selenium without installing anything?

Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for Selenium.

Are Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) and Selenium open source?

Yes. Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) is open source (MIT). Selenium is open source (Apache-2.0).

Other comparisons with Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) or Selenium

Disclosure

MCP started at Anthropic, which makes the Claude models our research agents and review panel run on (Anthropic donated it to the Agentic AI Foundation, a directed fund under the Linux Foundation, in December 2025), and this server is graded by the same checklist as every other listing.

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