Browserless vs Steel

Detailed side-by-side comparison to help you choose the right tool

Browserless

🔴Developer

Browser Automation

Managed browser infrastructure for Puppeteer, Playwright, and AI agents — with anti-bot bypass and an MCP server.

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Starting Price

Custom
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Steel

🔴Developer

Browser Automation

Open-source headless browser API for AI agents — managed Chromium sessions with stealth, captchas handling, file downloads, and per-session isolation.

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Starting Price

Free
Full ReviewVisit Site

Feature Comparison

Scroll horizontally to compare details.

FeatureBrowserlessSteel
CategoryBrowser AutomationBrowser Automation
Pricing Plans6 tiers11 tiers
Starting PriceFree
Key Features
    • • Open Source Architecture
    • • JavaScript Rendering
    • • Anti-Bot Detection

    Browserless - Pros & Cons

    Pros

    • ✓Drop-in Puppeteer/Playwright compatibility — no proprietary SDK
    • ✓Stealth, residential proxies, and CAPTCHA solving included by default
    • ✓Official MCP server makes the browser a first-class agent tool
    • ✓Pricing scales smoothly from Free up to enterprise-grade concurrency
    • ✓Self-hosted license available for compliance-heavy workloads

    Cons

    • ✗Unit-based billing takes practice to forecast accurately
    • ✗Pure URL-fetch workloads cheaper on Firecrawl or plain proxies
    • ✗CAPTCHA-heavy targets still hit edge cases occasionally
    • ✗Free tier (1,000 units) is small for serious load testing

    Steel - Pros & Cons

    Pros

    • ✓Truly open source under MIT — no SaaS lock-in
    • ✓Playwright/Puppeteer compatibility means existing scripts port over
    • ✓Stealth and proxy rotation are handled — no anti-bot whack-a-mole
    • ✓Self-host or cloud — same binary, you pick the deploy model
    • ✓Strong fit for regulated environments where data can't leave the VPC

    Cons

    • ✗Cloud pricing not transparently published — verify before depending on it
    • ✗Stealth tactics are a moving target as anti-bot vendors evolve
    • ✗You still write the agent loop on top — Steel doesn't decide what to click
    • ✗Smaller ecosystem of pre-built integrations than Browserbase

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    🔒 Security & Compliance Comparison

    Scroll horizontally to compare details.

    Security FeatureBrowserlessSteel
    SOC2——
    GDPR——
    HIPAA——
    SSO——
    Self-Hosted—✅ Yes
    On-Prem—✅ Yes
    RBAC——
    Audit Log——
    Open Source—✅ Yes
    API Key Auth—✅ Yes
    Encryption at Rest——
    Encryption in Transit—✅ Yes
    Data Residency——
    Data Retention——
    🦞

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    Ready to Choose?

    Read the full reviews to make an informed decision

    Review BrowserlessReview Steel