Pick Browserbase if
teams that need a fleet of headless browsers and will pay for concurrent sessions.
Read the Browserbase pageBrowserbase vs Steel
Our take
Pick Browserbase if teams that need a fleet of headless browsers and will pay for concurrent sessions. Pick Steel if agent authors who want a CDP endpoint with proxies and session replay. Skip Browserbase if people who only want URL → markdown (Firecrawl) or a search-credit API (Tavily). Skip Steel if people who want a hosted general agent (Manus) or markdown-out scrape credits (Firecrawl).
Steel
open-source browser API for agents
Best for
Browserbase Spin a remote Playwright/Puppeteer session
Steel Attach Playwright to a stealth cloud session
Free plan
Browserbase $0 · /mo. 3 concurrent browsers; 1 browser hour; 3 Agent runs; 1,000 Search; 1,000 Fetch; 15 minutes/session; $5 in model tokens
Steel $0 · /month + usage. $30 one-time credits (~300 browser hours). 10 concurrent; 15-minute sessions; 3 seats
Lowest paid
Browserbase Developer $20/mo
Steel Scale $250/mo
Next step up
Browserbase Startup $99/mo
Steel
Coding agent
Browserbase Identity
Steel CLI + agent skill
Runs where
Browserbase Hosted
Steel
Watch out
Browserbase Free is 1 browser hour
Steel Launch credits are one-time
Last checked
Browserbase 2026-10-21 · browserbase.com/pricing
Steel 2026-10-22 · steel.dev/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Steel if
agent authors who want a CDP endpoint with proxies and session replay.
Read the Steel page