# Puppeteer vs Steel (slim)

> Puppeteer and Steel score within a point of each other for browser automation, 70.6 and 70.4 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-steel.md (~2,550 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-steel.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-steel
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-14

Puppeteer and Steel score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 70.6 (BB) and 70.4 (BB). Steel leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do browser automation. Steel accepts x402. Puppeteer doesn't.

- Puppeteer: BB 70.6, rank #154 of 1076 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/puppeteer.min.md
- Steel: BB 70.4, rank #160 of 1076 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/steel.min.md
- Puppeteer, good for Agents that write and run Node.js scripts against Chrome or Firefox. Ahead on Reliability, 80 against 58; Maintenance & community, 89 against 82; Transparency & trust, 70 against 64. Also No key needed to call it.
- Steel, 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 81; Agent ergonomics, 79 against 67; Payments & pricing, 75 against 60. Also An agent can pay per call over x402, with no account; A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card.

| Category | Puppeteer | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 80 | 58 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 81 | 86 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 79 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 52 | 56 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 75 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 89 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 70 | 64 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Puppeteer | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Google | Nen Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.steel.dev` |
| Transports |  | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| x402 | no | yes, from $0.01/call |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | 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 |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2025-02-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-02-05 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 96k stars, 11.5M npm/wk | 47k npm/wk, 63k PyPI/wk |