Cua vs Stagehand
A side-by-side comparison of Cua and Stagehand, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.
Compared from listings verified as of
At a glance
| Attribute | Cua | Stagehand |
|---|---|---|
| Category (differs) | Agent | Automation |
| Pricing (differs) | FREEMIUM | FREE |
| License (differs) | Open core | Open source |
| Deployment (differs) | Hybrid | — |
| Platforms (differs) | macOS, Linux, CLI, API | API |
| Model support (differs) | Model-agnostic | BYO key / model |
| Vendor (differs) | Cua | Browserbase |
| Capabilities (differs) |
|
|
The honest brief
Cua
Boots Linux/Windows/macOS/Android VMs from one API for computer-use agents, hitting near-native speed on Apple Silicon via Apple's Virtualization.framework.
- Isolated VMs across four OS families
- Agents control full desktops, not just browsers
- SDKs and benchmarks included
- Run locally with any LLM
- Cloud, BYOC, or on-prem hosting
- Cloud hosting is paid/commercial
- Developer/infra tool, not an end-user app
- Computer-use agents are still error-prone
Stagehand
Mixes deterministic code with natural-language act()/extract() — no all-or-nothing handoff to a black-box agent.
- CDP-native v3 driver, no Playwright lock-in
- Mix code and NL primitives
- TypeScript and Python SDKs
- Model-agnostic (OpenAI/Anthropic/Google)
- SDK, not a no-code tool
- Best paired with Browserbase cloud
- Reliability depends on model choice
- Newer than raw Playwright/Puppeteer
When to pick which
Both cover Browser automation.
Pick Cua if you need Sandboxed code execution, Agent framework, and LLM evaluation.
- Sandboxed code execution (secondary capability)
- Agent framework (primary capability)
- LLM evaluation (primary capability)
Pick Stagehand if you need Web scraping and Structured extraction.
- Web scraping (secondary capability)
- Structured extraction (secondary capability)
Stagehand leans on Browser automation as a headline capability; Cua treats it as secondary.
- Browser automation (primary capability)
They also differ on:
- Pricing
- FREEMIUM · FREE
- License
- Open core · Open source
- Platforms
- macOS, Linux, CLI, API · API