Browserbase vs Steel
A side-by-side comparison of Browserbase and Steel, two Infra tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
The honest brief
Browserbase
Managed stealth-browser fleet (proxies + CAPTCHA solving) drivable by Playwright or its open-source Stagehand framework.
- Managed fleet scales to many sessions
- Drivable via Stagehand framework
- Works with Playwright/Puppeteer
- Session observability and replay
- Usage-based cost on a monthly base
- Free tier just 1 browser hour
- Infra layer — you still write the agent
Steel
Open-source, Docker-self-hostable browser sandbox unlike most closed agent-browser APIs — run local or in cloud.
- Self-host via Docker or use the cloud
- Handles sessions/proxies/CAPTCHAs
- Page-to-markdown/screenshot/PDF
- Framework- and model-agnostic
- Infrastructure, not a full agent
- Managed cloud is metered
- Younger than incumbent scrapers
- Needs an agent framework on top