Best Cloud Browsers for AI Agents in 2026: 6 Compared on the Features That Matter

A cloud browser for AI agents is a real Chromium browser that runs in the cloud and takes commands from your agent or script over the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP), Playwright or Puppeteer.

So with a cloud browser, your agent can open pages, sign in, click and extract data without requiring you to run a browser machine yourself.

At TinyFish, we built our own cloud browser because our agents needed one and the providers we tried didn't fit at agent scale.

In this article, we compare six cloud browsers on features, including TinyFish. To keep this comparison honest, every number about other providers below comes from a public benchmark, a pricing page or their documentation.

Key takeaways: the best cloud browser for each job

We're obviously a bit biased, but if your agents run the same web jobs every day, sign in to accounts and need residential proxies, TinyFish is genuinely a good option.

That's what we built it for.

We are the only one of these six that includes proxies and anti-bot handling in a single per-minute price, and the same API key gives you a web agent for the pages your scripts can't handle.

Prices were checked on November 1, 2026. They change often, so confirm them on each provider's pricing page.

How we compared them

We compared the six on four features:

• Startup, reliability and session isolation
• Anti-bot handling and residential proxies
• Logins and MFA support
• Total cost per browser-hour

We didn't run new tests. We are using public benchmarks (benchmarks are named and dated where we use them). The one number that comes from us is our startup time, which our engineering team measures in production.

Startup, reliability and session isolation

Startup time is how long your agent waits before it can do anything. A TinyFish browser reaches a working CDP URL in 125 ms at the 95th percentile. That's measured from the API request and includes the network hops in between. We don't keep a pool of idle browsers waiting to get there. Each browser image is booted once, paused and saved as a memory snapshot, and every new session is a copy of that snapshot. Loading the copy takes 2 to 3 ms, and then we apply your proxy and settings.

Reliability is easier to compare across providers. BrowserArena, a public leaderboard run by the browser company Notte, starts 100 sessions on each provider and records how many succeed. In its November 3, 2026 snapshot:

Isolation is very important. An agent connected over CDP has full control of its browser, so it can read every cookie, intercept traffic or shut the browser down.

For example, if a prompt injection takes over the agent, the boundary around the browser is what keeps it away from other customers' sessions.

We run every session in its own microVM and destroy it when the session ends, so no cookies or files persist.

Browserbase uses isolated VMs and rebuilds each one after every session, while Browser Use uses Firecracker microVMs. Steel gives each session its own isolated browser runtime.

Hyperbrowser uses containers. Browserless starts a clean copy of Chrome for each session, with dedicated VMs available for private deployments.

Anti-bot handling and residential proxies: included or metered?

Sites that block agents usually check several signals at once: the IP address, the TLS fingerprint, traces of automation in the page and how the visitor behaves. Every provider here handles part of that for you. What differs is how they do it and what it costs.

At TinyFish, our approach is to avoid looking automated.

TinyBrowser runs native Chromium and keeps its automation in native code instead of injecting JavaScript into the page. We learned how important this is on sites with strict automation checks. Turning on a single standard CDP command, Runtime.evaluate, dropped our pass rate on those sites from 100% to 0%. Traffic goes through residential proxies by default, with exit IPs in seven countries. You can bring your own proxies as well.

For sites behind Cloudflare or DataDome, the Stealth browser mode adds anti-fingerprinting. In our internal testing on standard commercial sites, up to 85% of sessions reach the page without being blocked.

Proxies and anti-bot handling are included in the TinyBrowser per-minute rate (current pricing). The other five bill residential proxy traffic by the gigabyte once you're past any plan allowance, from $5/GB on Browser Use to $12/GB on Browserbase's Developer plan. Most of them also charge for each CAPTCHA they solve.

There are two limits to know about.

• The only public stealth benchmark across these providers didn't include us. Browser Use's Stealth Bench V2 (September 25, 2026) visited 100 bot-protected sites twice each. Browser Use passed 90.5% of visits, Browserbase 78.5%, Browserless 77.5%, Steel 74.5% and Hyperbrowser 73.5%. Browser Use chose the sites and says the list favors their own browser.
• TinyBrowser doesn't solve reCAPTCHA-style challenges. If your target sites show a CAPTCHA on most visits, Browserbase, Steel, Hyperbrowser and Browserless all solve them on their paid plans.

Logins and MFA support: profiles, vaults and TOTP

Most providers can save a logged-in browser session and reuse it later, but fewer can handle logging in automatically.

At TinyFish, logins run through TinyAgent with TinyVault and TinyProfiles.

You connect 1Password or Bitwarden to TinyVault. When TinyAgent reaches a login page, TinyVault fills in the credentials inside the TinyBrowser session, so the password never reaches the model or your code. If the vault item has a TOTP field, TinyVault fills in the one-time code too.

TinyProfiles keep the session after that. One run updates the saved login while other runs restore it in parallel, so many agents can work in the same account at once. When the session expires, TinyVault signs in again.

If you drive TinyBrowser with your own Playwright scripts instead, you can have your code handle the login or run the sign-in part through TinyAgent.

TinyAgent with TinyVault and Browser Use are the two that generate TOTP codes without a person today. With Browserbase, Steel, Hyperbrowser and Browserless, someone signs in once and the saved session is replayed until it expires.

When scripts aren't enough: TinyAgent on the same platform

When a workflow needs to sign in, fill forms or keep working after a site changes its layout, TinyAgent can follow a goal and figure out what to do.

It runs on TinyBrowser sessions, signs in with TinyVault and TinyProfiles, and returns structured JSON with logs and screenshots for every run. It's billed per Agent step from the same prepaid Wallet, and its benchmark results are on our benchmarks page.

Cloud browser pricing: the cost of 1,000 browser-hours with proxies

Hourly browser prices hide the biggest cost for agents on protected sites, which is residential proxy traffic. Here is one month at 1,000 browser-hours with 100 MB of residential traffic per browser-hour (100 GB in total).

Each provider is on its cheapest plan for that load, using the prices listed on November 3, 2026.

The six cloud browsers compared

1. TinyFish

TinyBrowser is a managed Chromium session you drive with Playwright, Puppeteer or raw CDP. You create a session through the API, get back a cdp_url and connect your existing script to it. Each session runs in its own microVM and goes through a US residential proxy by default, with six other countries available. You set how long an idle session stays open with timeout_seconds.

TinyBrowser is one of four products on the same API key. TinySearch and TinyFetch find and read pages for free within published limits, and TinyAgent takes over when you'd rather describe a goal than script the clicks. TinyAgent signs in to accounts with TinyVault and TinyProfiles. Our own agents provision browsers through the same API you use.

• Good for: engineering teams running agent workflows on a schedule, behind logins and through residential proxies, who want one price and an agent for the steps scripts can't handle.
• Pricing: TinyBrowser costs $0.002 per Browser minute at the time of writing, with proxies and anti-bot handling included. TinyAgent is billed per Agent step. Both draw from the Wallet, with no subscription. TinySearch and TinyFetch are free within published limits.

2. Browser Use Cloud

Browser Use Cloud is the hosted side of Browser Use, an open-source Python framework for browser agents. You connect your own Playwright or CDP code to its browsers. Each session runs in its own Firecracker microVM.

At $0.02 per hour, it has the lowest browser price in this list (without residential proxies). Profiles save logins, and cookie sync can copy a signed-in session from your local Chrome. Concurrency starts at 10 sessions and rises with your total spend, up to 1,000 sessions once you've spent $25,000.

• Good for: a low hourly browser price, light proxy traffic, and teams already using the Browser Use framework. It also has the top score on its own Stealth Bench.
• Watch out for: residential proxies are on by default and billed at $5/GB, so proxy-heavy workloads cost more than the hourly rate suggests.
• Pricing: $0.02 per browser-hour and $5/GB for residential proxies. Pay as you go with no subscription.

3. Browserbase

Browserbase runs hosted Chrome sessions that you control with Playwright, Puppeteer or Selenium. It also maintains the Stagehand SDK.

Contexts save cookies and storage between sessions, and session replay shows what each session did. Each browser runs in its own VM, and Browserbase lists SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance.

• Good for: teams building on Stagehand, and teams that need session replay with SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA coverage.
• Watch out for: proxy traffic past the plan allowance costs $10 to $12/GB, and the strongest anti-detection tier is limited to the custom Scale plan.
• Pricing: free plan with 3 concurrent browsers and 1 browser-hour. Developer is $20/month for 100 hours, then $0.12/hour. Startup is $99/month for 500 hours, then $0.10/hour.

4. Steel

Steel is an open-source browser API. You can use it on Steel Cloud or deploy it on your own servers, and it connects to Playwright, Puppeteer, CDP or your own computer-use agent.

Steel focuses on the browser itself: persistent profiles, session resume, live sessions and 1080p recordings. The free Launch plan has no monthly fee and allows 10 concurrent sessions, which makes it a low-cost place to start before deciding whether to self-host.

• Good for: teams that want to self-host, or start free on a managed browser with 10 concurrent sessions.
• Watch out for: 98% reliability in BrowserArena's snapshot, credential storage still in beta, and 2FA that needs a person to take over.
• Pricing: Launch is free plus $0.10/hour, $10/GB proxy and $3 per 1,000 CAPTCHAs. Scale is $250/month plus $0.08/hour, $6/GB and $1 per 1,000 CAPTCHAs.

5. Browserless

Browserless runs hosted Chrome for Playwright and Puppeteer, and adds APIs for the jobs scrapers do most. BrowserQL is its query language for navigating and extracting data from rendered pages. Its REST endpoints return screenshots, PDFs and downloads without a full script.

You can use Browserless as a hosted service or run it yourself in Docker, with a commercial license for commercial use. For logins, Authenticated Profiles save a signed-in browser state and restore it in later sessions. Billing works in units. One unit covers up to 30 seconds of browser time, and proxy traffic and CAPTCHA solves use extra units.

• Good for: scraping-heavy teams that want ready-made extraction APIs, and teams that want to self-host with Docker.
• Watch out for: usage is billed in 30-second units, and residential proxies cost 6 units per MB, so the real cost takes some math. It isn't on BrowserArena's leaderboard.
• Pricing: free plan with 1,000 units. Prototyping is $25/month billed yearly for 20,000 units and 10 concurrent browsers. Scale is $350/month for 500,000 units.

6. Hyperbrowser

Hyperbrowser provides hosted browser sessions for your Playwright or Puppeteer code. Saved profiles keep logins between sessions, and live view and recordings show what a session did.

Every plan uses the same unit rates: $0.10 per browser-hour and $10/GB for proxy data. Paid plans add automatic CAPTCHA solving and residential proxies, and the Scale plan moves up to premium residential proxies. Hyperbrowser also sells sandboxes and web APIs alongside its browsers.

• Good for: teams that want a flat $0.10/hour browser with live view and recordings.
• Watch out for: the free plan allows one concurrent session, and its strongest stealth mode is limited to Enterprise.
• Pricing: Startup is $30/month in usage credits with 25 concurrent sessions. Browser time is $0.10/hour and proxies $10/GB.

Get started with TinyFish

Choose TinyFish for recurring web workflows that need residential proxies, automated logins and a mix of scripts and AI agents. We bring those capabilities together in one platform, accessible through one API key.

TinySearch finds relevant pages, and TinyFetch turns them into content your agent can use. TinyBrowser runs your browser scripts with proxies included. For tasks you'd rather describe than script, TinyAgent works toward your goal, using TinyVault to fill credentials and TOTP codes and TinyProfiles to reuse signed-in sessions across runs.

Get started with TinyFish: try TinySearch and TinyFetch free within their published limits, then fund your Wallet to run TinyBrowser and TinyAgent.