# Selenium vs Steel

> Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) to Steel's 70.4 (BB) for browser automation. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/selenium-vs-steel
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/selenium-vs-steel.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/selenium-vs-steel.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/selenium-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: 2026-10-14

Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Steel's 70.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Steel leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and payments & pricing. Both do browser automation. Steel accepts x402. Selenium doesn't.

- Selenium: grade BB, 73.6/100, rank #90 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/selenium.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/selenium.json
- Steel: grade BB, 70.4/100, rank #160 of 1076. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/steel.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/steel.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

### Selenium (BB)

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

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 58
- Maintenance & community, 94 against 82
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 64

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

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

### 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:
- Agent ergonomics, 79 against 70
- Security & auth, 56 against 43
- Payments & pricing, 75 against 60

Also in its favour:
- 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

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 | Selenium | Steel | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 58 | Selenium +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 86 | Selenium +3 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 79 | Steel +9 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 56 | Steel +13 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 75 | Steel +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 94 | 82 | Selenium +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 74 | 64 | Selenium +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **73.6 · BB** | **70.4 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Selenium | Steel |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Selenium project (Software Freedom Conservancy) | Nen Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.steel.dev` |
| Transports | HTTP | 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 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-09 | 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 | 35k stars, 1.8M npm/wk, 6.9M PyPI/wk | 47k npm/wk, 63k PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**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.

**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

### 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

### 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, Selenium or Steel?

Selenium scores 73.6 (BB) on agent readiness against Steel's 70.4 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Steel leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and payments & pricing.

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

No hosted endpoint is listed for Selenium. Steel has a hosted endpoint at https://api.steel.dev.

### Are Selenium and Steel open source?

Yes. Selenium is open source (Apache-2.0). 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/selenium-vs-steel.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/selenium-vs-steel.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "selenium", "b": "steel"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare selenium steel`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/selenium.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/steel.json

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