# Puppeteer vs TinyFish

> Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) to TinyFish's 67.7 (B) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-tinyfish
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-tinyfish.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-tinyfish.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-tinyfish.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: 2026-10-14

Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish's 67.7 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth. Both do browser automation.

- Puppeteer: grade BB, 70.6/100, rank #154 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/puppeteer.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/puppeteer.json
- TinyFish: grade B, 67.7/100, rank #258 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/tinyfish.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/tinyfish.json
- Best browser automation tools for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/browser/index.md
- All 120 browser comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browser/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Puppeteer (BB)

Good for: Agents that write and run Node.js scripts against Chrome or Firefox.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 60
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 55
- Maintenance & community, 89 against 80
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 59

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No key needed to call it
- Open source

Watch for: No MCP server, CLI or llms.txt of its own. The docs point agents to the separate chrome-devtools-mcp project

### 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:
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 67
- Security & auth, 57 against 52

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 | Puppeteer | TinyFish | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 60 | Puppeteer +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 85 | TinyFish +4 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 79 | TinyFish +12 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 52 | 57 | TinyFish +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 55 | Puppeteer +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 89 | 80 | Puppeteer +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 59 | Puppeteer +11 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.6 · BB** | **67.7 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Puppeteer | TinyFish |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Google | TinyFish |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://agent.tinyfish.ai` |
| Transports |  | 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 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | `ai.tinyfish.agent/web-agent` |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 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 | 96k stars, 11.5M npm/wk | 5.7k npm/wk, 6.5k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Puppeteer.** Puppeteer is a stable, Apache-2.0 library on 25.13.0, with ten releases since 27 July 2026, typed APIs, locators that wait and retry, and accessibility snapshots an agent can read. It has no MCP server or llms.txt of its own, and 10 of the 20 most recent CI runs on main failed between 7 and 13 October 2026.

**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

### Puppeteer

1. Install with `npm i puppeteer`, which downloads a matching Chrome for Testing. Use `puppeteer-core` to bring your own browser
2. Prefer `page.locator()` over `page.$()`. Locators wait for the element to be visible and stable before acting
3. Read pages with `page.accessibility.snapshot({interestingOnly: true})` rather than full HTML to keep output short
4. Catch `TimeoutError` separately from `TargetCloseError`. The first can be retried, the second needs a new page or browser
5. Packages are ESM only since 25.0.0. Use `import puppeteer from 'puppeteer'` rather than `require`

### 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, Puppeteer or TinyFish?

Puppeteer scores 70.6 (BB) on agent readiness against TinyFish's 67.7 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TinyFish leads on agent ergonomics and security & auth.

### Can an agent call Puppeteer and TinyFish without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Puppeteer. TinyFish has a hosted endpoint at https://agent.tinyfish.ai.

### Are Puppeteer and TinyFish open source?

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

## Other comparisons with Puppeteer or TinyFish

- [agent-browser vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [agent-browser vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/agent-browser-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Airtop vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Airtop vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/airtop-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Anchor Browser vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anchor-browser-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Browser Use vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browser-use-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Browser Use vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browser-use-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Browserbase vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserbase-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Browserless vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Browserless vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/browserless-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Chrome DevTools MCP vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/chrome-devtools-mcp-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Chrome DevTools MCP vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/chrome-devtools-mcp-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Hyperbrowser vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbrowser-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Hyperbrowser vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbrowser-vs-tinyfish.md)
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- [Notte vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/notte-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Playwright MCP vs Puppeteer](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/playwright-mcp-vs-puppeteer.md)
- [Playwright MCP vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/playwright-mcp-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server) vs TinyFish](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-reference-server-archived-vs-tinyfish.md)
- [Puppeteer vs Puppeteer (archived MCP reference server)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/puppeteer-vs-puppeteer-reference-server-archived.md)
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