A cloud browser is a browser you connect to rather than install
The engine runs in a datacentre. Your code holds a websocket to it and drives it with the same library it already uses, so the automation stays where it was and only the transport changes.
What moving the browser off your machine actually changes
Concurrency stops being your problem
Running fifty browsers locally means fifty processes competing for one page cache and one network interface. Running fifty remotely means fifty independent machines, and the constraint moves from your laptop to your budget.
The exit address changes
Requests now originate from the provider's network, not your office. That matters for allowlists, for geographic content, and for any internal system that expects traffic from a known range.
Latency is added, not removed
Every protocol call becomes a round trip. A script written as a chatty sequence of small commands feels the difference immediately; one that batches its work through evaluated functions barely notices.
A third party now processes the pages
Whatever the browser loads passes through infrastructure you do not own. Under GDPR that is a processor relationship, with everything that follows from it.
What to check before you pick one
| Protocol compatibility | Whether your existing Playwright or Puppeteer code connects unchanged, or needs a vendor SDK |
|---|---|
| Where sessions execute | The datacentre region, and separately the jurisdiction the operating company sits in |
| Session lifetime | How long one browser can stay open, which decides whether long authenticated flows are possible |
| Profile persistence | Whether cookies and storage survive between sessions, or every run starts logged out |
| Recording and retention | What is captured, where it is stored and how long it is kept before deletion |
| Billing unit | Per browser-hour, per session or per request, which changes which workloads are affordable |
As of 2026-08-31
Common questions
Is a cloud browser the same as browser as a service?
The terms are used interchangeably. Both describe renting a browser process over a network protocol rather than running one yourself. Some vendors reserve browser as a service for the lower-level endpoint and cloud browser for the fuller product with recording and profiles on top.
Will my Playwright script work unchanged?
If the provider exposes a standard connect endpoint, yes: you swap browser launch for browser connect and the rest of the script is untouched. That single line is the honest test of whether you are buying infrastructure or a platform you will have to rewrite for.
Does a region setting make it EU-hosted?
It makes the compute EU-located, which is not the same question. A provider incorporated outside the EU remains subject to its home jurisdiction regardless of which datacentre serves the request, and that is what a data-protection review asks about.
How many concurrent browsers do I actually need?
Fewer than most teams provision. Concurrency should be sized on task duration times arrival rate, not on peak wishes. Measure a single task end to end first; the number is usually a third of the initial guess.
Point an existing script at a different endpoint
The fastest way to evaluate a cloud browser is to change one line and run the suite you already have.