Steel alternative: Browserberg compared
Both run Chromium for agents. They differ on where your session data is processed, whether the product helps you evade bot detection, and what happens to your credentials.
What Steel is
Steel
Steel is the open-source answer to Browserbase: Apache-2.0, over 7,000 GitHub stars, sub-second session starts and a session-context API. If you want to read the code that runs your browsers, Steel is the obvious starting point.
Where Browserberg is the better fit
Feature coverage is thin
Independent benchmarking put Steel at roughly 45% feature coverage. Fast session starts are real; the layer above them is mostly yours to build.
Single-node by design
Steel resolves session to browser through a process-local map. Tenancy, distributed session routing, profile encryption and takeover leases are not in the box.
Compliance artifacts are thin
For a Mittelstand procurement asking for a DPA, a subprocessor list and AI Act documentation, an Apache-2.0 licence is not an answer.
Browserberg and Steel, side by side
Competitor figures come from Steel's published pricing and documentation on the date below. Where a figure is a vendor's own claim rather than an independent measurement, it says so.
| Browserberg | Steel | |
|---|---|---|
| Where sessions run | EU bare metal (OVHcloud) | US-operated; self-host possible |
| Bot posture | Authenticated-first, no stealth | Standard anti-detect |
| Price per browser hour | EUR 0.08–0.09/hr | USD 0.08–0.10/hr |
| Free tier | 5 hours | USD 30 credits |
| Credential vault | Yes — encrypted, site-scoped, never in model context | No |
| Human takeover | Yes — live view with single-writer lease | No |
As of 2026-08-30 · Competitor details come from each vendor's published pricing page on that date.
Migrating from Steel
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Keep your Playwright layer as it is
Both products expose CDP, so the driver code is untouched.
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Port session-context calls
Steel's session-context API is theirs, not a standard. Those calls map onto our profile and vault APIs but are not drop-in.
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Delete the tenancy code you wrote
If you built per-customer isolation on top of Steel's process-local model, that is the part you stop maintaining.
Questions people actually ask
If Steel is open source, why pay for anything?
Because the browsers are the easy part. Steel gives you fast session starts; tenancy, distributed routing, profile encryption, takeover leases and a credential vault are yours to build, and that is where the months go.
What does 45% feature coverage mean in practice?
It is an independent benchmark's count of category features present. It tells you Steel is a good primitive rather than a complete product, which is roughly how they position it themselves.
Can I move from Steel to Browserberg without a rewrite?
Yes, if you are driving it with Playwright or Puppeteer over CDP. If you have built against Steel's session-context API specifically, that part needs porting — it is their API, not a standard.
Other comparisons
- Browserbase Browserbase is the category leader and the most complete managed offering: Stagehand as an MIT-licensed SDK, contexts, replays, an MCP server, SOC 2 and HIPAA, and a founding seat on Cloudflare's Signed Agents programme.
- Browserless Browserless is the mature headless-browser service in the category: Puppeteer, Playwright and Selenium support, a REST API, BrowserQL, an MCP server, a self-hostable Docker image, and SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR compliance.
- Hyperbrowser Hyperbrowser leads with stealth.
- Kernel Kernel is the cheapest serious option and the most infrastructure-shaped: unikernel and microVM isolation, sessions that can run for 72 hours, browser pools, per-second billing and ISO 27001.
- Anchor Browser Anchor is our closest strategic neighbour and the comparison we take most seriously.
- Browser Use Cloud Browser Use is the benchmark leader and the cheapest per hour in the category: 84.
Settle it with your own script
Five browser hours free, no card. Point an existing Playwright or Puppeteer script at our endpoint and compare the result yourself.