Skyvern vs Steel

Skyvern

The hosted MCP server annotates every tool as read-only or destructive and can advertise a 29 or 32-tool subset in place of 114, and the API has a written six-month deprecation policy. Every key and OAuth token carries full organisation authority, with no read-only or scoped credential, and no request rate limits are documented.

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.

Skyvern

1. Connect to https://api.skyvern.com/mcp/x/lean or /x/operate, or send X-Skyvern-Scope, so the client loads 32 or 29 tools. The scope filters the list and does not limit permissions
2. Use a separate Skyvern organisation for each blast radius. Any key or OAuth token can read and write stored credentials and delete workflows
3. Never pass passwords to skyvern_act or skyvern_type. Store them as credentials and call skyvern_login
4. Set max_steps on tasks, or x-max-steps-override on agent runs, to cap credits. A run that reaches the cap ends as timed_out
5. On 503 from POST /v1/run/agents, wait Retry-After seconds. No run was created, so resubmitting is safe

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