Open-source headless browser API for AI agents — managed Chromium sessions with stealth, captcha handling, file downloads, and per-session isolation.
Open-source headless browser API for AI agents — managed Chromium sessions with stealth, captcha handling, file downloads, and per-session isolation.
Steel is an open-source (MIT) headless browser API built for AI agents, providing managed Chromium sessions with stealth fingerprinting, captcha handling, proxy rotation, session persistence, and structured screenshots — driven via Playwright/Puppeteer. Available self-hosted or as Steel Cloud.
Steel provides purpose-built cloud browser infrastructure for AI agents, solving the hard problems of session management, authentication persistence, and anti-bot detection that plague DIY browser automation. As an open-source solution, it offers transparency and self-hosting capabilities that commercial alternatives lack, making it ideal for organizations with specific compliance or cost requirements.
Complete source code access and self-hosting capabilities with Docker-based deployment for full control over browser automation infrastructure
Use Case:
Perfect for organizations requiring complete transparency, custom modifications, or specific compliance requirements for web scraping operations
Advanced browser fingerprinting and behavior simulation that makes automated requests indistinguishable from human browser usage patterns
Use Case:
Essential for scraping modern websites with sophisticated bot detection systems like Cloudflare, DataDome, or custom protection mechanisms
Maintains browser state, cookies, and authentication tokens across multiple requests enabling complex multi-step workflows and authenticated scraping
Use Case:
Critical for applications requiring login flows, e-commerce cart interactions, or any stateful web application automation
Full Chrome browser engine with dynamic content rendering, infinite scroll handling, and interactive element manipulation capabilities
Use Case:
Ideal for modern SPAs, React/Vue applications, and any website that loads content dynamically through JavaScript rather than server-side rendering
$0 (MIT licensed)
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We believe in transparent reviews. Here's what Steel doesn't handle well:
In 2026, Steel enhanced agent scraping with improved JavaScript execution performance, better anti-detection algorithms, enhanced session management, and new tools for structured data extraction from complex websites.
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Pricing and features change often. If anything on this Steel page is wrong or missing, tell us and include a link to the source. We review every correction.