4 Best Browserbase Alternatives in 2026 for Scraping and Agents

The best Browserbase alternatives in 2026 are Scrape.ly, Browserless, Bright Data Browser API and Steel. Among Browserbase alternatives, Scrape.ly is our pick for scraping: its hosted Chromium has anti-bot fingerprints, Cloudflare Turnstile solving and its own residential proxy on every plan, your existing Playwright and Puppeteer code uses it without a changed line, and 570+ ready-made scrapers mean many jobs need no browser script at all.

Browserbase is a capable platform for browser agents, with browsers, a runtime, search and fetch APIs and its Stagehand SDK. Teams look for alternatives when the anti-bot features they need sit on a higher plan, when proxy traffic becomes its own line item, or when what they actually want is the data, not a browser to fetch it with. Below: what Browserbase's plans include, sourced from its pricing page, the criteria that matter for scraping, four alternatives side by side, and how to move your scripts over. Every competitor fact was checked on the vendor's own page on 27 October 2026.

Why teams look for Browserbase alternatives

Per Browserbase's pricing page:

• Anti-bot features are tiered. The Free plan has no CAPTCHA solving and no stealth mode. Developer ($20 a month) and Startup ($99) include CAPTCHA solving and "Basic" stealth. "Advanced" stealth is on the custom-priced Scale plan.
• Proxy traffic is metered on top. Developer includes 1 GB of proxies, then $12 per GB. Startup includes 5 GB, then $10 per GB.
• The free tier is small. Free gives you 1 browser hour, 3 concurrent browsers and sessions of up to 15 minutes.
• Overage has no built-in ceiling. "Every plan scales past its included usage, so no caps or throttling as you build, billed at your plan's rate." That's convenient while you build, and it means keeping a job inside a budget is up to you.
• A browser is where the scraping work starts. For data collection, you still write, run and maintain a script for every site, and keep it working when the site changes.

What to look for in Browserbase alternatives

1. Anti-bot on every plan. Realistic fingerprints and challenge solving shouldn't wait for an enterprise contract.
2. Proxies inside the browser bill, with country, state and city targeting, so you don't size a separate GB allowance.
3. No rewrite. Your Playwright and Puppeteer code should run as it is.
4. A hard spending cap per job, browser time included.
5. Ready-made scrapers, so the sites everyone scrapes don't need a browser script from you.
6. A path for AI agents to run the same jobs over MCP.

Browserbase alternatives compared

The sources for every competitor cell are the pricing pages linked in each section below.

1. Scrape.ly: an anti-bot browser inside a scraping platform

Scrape.ly is a web data platform with a Store of 570+ ready-made scrapers called Actors, a cloud runtime for your own code, managed proxies, an API, and an MCP server for AI agents. The Scrape.ly browser is the hosted Chromium those Actors run on.

Anti-bot built in, on every plan. The browser has anti-bot fingerprints, solves Cloudflare Turnstile challenges by default, and routes traffic through its own residential proxy. You pick where it exits (country, state, city) and how it presents itself (Windows, macOS or Android), and the time zone and language follow the exit country unless you set them. There's no stealth tier to upgrade to.

Your code doesn't change. Turn the browser on for an Actor under Settings → Scrapely Browser and rebuild. Every browser launch in that Actor is then redirected to it: Crawlee's PlaywrightCrawler and PuppeteerCrawler, raw chromium.launch() and puppeteer.launch(), in JavaScript and Python. Firefox, WebKit and Camoufox launches are redirected to the Scrape.ly browser's Chromium too. Code that connects over CDP itself gets a CDP_URL in every run.

It runs where your code runs. Unlike Browserbase, you don't connect to the Scrape.ly browser from your own server: it accepts connections from Actor runs on the platform. That's the point. Your script, the browser, the proxy, the scheduler, the dataset and the logs live in one place, and you don't host anything.

One bill with a cap. Browser time is billed in 30-second blocks plus the browser's proxy traffic per MB, and that traffic is never billed again as proxy GB. Browser credits count toward the run's maximum charge, so when the cap is reached the run stops. The Free plan's $5 of monthly credit covers it, no card needed.

Often, no browser script at all. Store Actors open browser sessions when a page needs one, and on most of them that browser time is included in a fixed price per result, as on the Amazon Product Scraper. The Website Content Crawler fetches pages over HTTP and uses Chrome only when a page needs JavaScript. Either way, you send an input and get rows or Markdown back.

Agents included. The hosted MCP server at https://mcp.scrape.ly lets Claude, Cursor, VS Code and ChatGPT run any Store Actor or your own, with a scoped API key and a daily charge limit to keep them on budget.

Best for: teams that use a cloud browser to collect data and want stealth, proxies and challenge solving included, their existing code unchanged, and ready-made scrapers for the common sites. Read more about how it works in what is a cloud browser.

What a browser configuration looks like

To choose the exit location and fingerprint, pass a browser configuration to your crawler. From the browser docs:

import { Actor, PlaywrightCrawler } from 'scrapely';

await Actor.main(async () => {
    const browserConfiguration = await Actor.createBrowserConfiguration({
        countryCode: 'US',
        state: 'California',
        os: 'windows',
    });

    const crawler = new PlaywrightCrawler({
        browserConfiguration,
        async requestHandler({ page }) {
            await Actor.pushData({ title: await page.title() });
        },
    });
    await crawler.run(['https://example.com']);
});

Invalid values fail when you create the configuration, before any browser starts. The same options exist in Python as Actor.create_browser_configuration(country_code="US", state="California", os="windows"), and solveCloudflare is on unless you turn it off.

2. Browserless

Browserless hosts Chrome, Firefox and WebKit browsers that your automation code connects to. It bills in units: "a block of browser time of up to 30 seconds per browser connection", and session reconnects count as new connections. Residential proxy traffic costs 6 units per MB, datacenter 2 units per MB, and each successful CAPTCHA solve 10 units. The Free plan has 1,000 units a month with 2-minute sessions; Prototyping costs $25 a month billed annually for 20,000 units and 15-minute sessions, with overage at $0.002 per unit. Enterprise plans include licensed self-hosting.

Best for: teams that run their own Puppeteer or Playwright code on their own servers and want a browser endpoint, or want to self-host. The Scrape.ly vs Browserless comparison covers the differences in detail.

3. Bright Data Browser API

Bright Data's Browser API is a hosted browser with Bright Data's unblocking built in: CAPTCHA solving, fingerprinting and automatic retries. It works with Puppeteer, Playwright and Selenium. It bills per GB of traffic: a free tier of 5,000 credits a month with 1 GB included, $8 per GB without a commitment, or Scale at $499 a month.

Best for: teams already buying Bright Data proxies or datasets who want the browser on the same contract. Because it bills per GB, heavy pages with images and scripts cost more than light ones. See Scrape.ly vs Bright Data for the platform comparison.

4. Steel

Steel is a browser API for AI agents, with an open-source Steel Browser on GitHub. The Launch plan has no monthly fee and starts with $30 of credits, one time, then bills browser hours ($0.10), proxy bandwidth ($10 per GB) and CAPTCHA solves ($3 per 1,000), with 10 concurrent sessions of up to 15 minutes. Scale costs $250 a month plus usage, with $100 of credits every month and 1-hour sessions. Its stealth browser is included only on Enterprise.

Best for: agent builders who want a session-based browser API and can live without stealth below Enterprise. For scraping protected sites, Scrape.ly's fingerprints and Turnstile solving come on every plan.

How to switch from Browserbase to Scrape.ly

1. Check the Store first. For each site your scripts visit, search the Store. Amazon, Google Search, Google Maps, LinkedIn and YouTube all have ready-made Actors, and each one you use is a script you stop maintaining.

2. Put the remaining scripts in an Actor. Install the CLI, log in with an API token, and start from a browser template, or add a config to your existing project:

npm install -g scrapely-cli
scrapely login
scrapely create my-scraper --template crawlee-playwright

Move your page logic into the request handler, or keep your own code and run scrapely init in its folder instead.

3. Delete the remote-session code. Where your script created a Browserbase session and connected to it over CDP, use a plain chromium.launch() or puppeteer.launch(). With the browser setting on, the platform redirects it. If you prefer to connect yourself, use chromium.connectOverCDP(process.env.CDP_URL).

4. Turn on the Scrape.ly browser and push. Enable Use Scrapely browser in the Actor's Settings, then run scrapely push. The setting follows the build, so rebuild whenever you change it; the build log shows Browser patch: on (remote browser).

5. Cap, schedule and share it. Set a maximum charge on each run, save the input as a task with a schedule, and add https://mcp.scrape.ly to your agent with claude mcp add --transport http scrapely https://mcp.scrape.ly. For pages that render content with JavaScript, our guide to headless browsers covers the patterns, and Playwright stealth explains what fingerprinting does.

FAQ

What is the best Browserbase alternative?

Scrape.ly. Its hosted browser includes anti-bot fingerprints, Cloudflare Turnstile solving and a residential proxy on every plan, your Playwright and Puppeteer code uses it unchanged, every run has a hard spending cap, and 570+ ready-made scrapers cover the common sites without a script.

Is there a free Browserbase alternative?

Scrape.ly's Free plan gives you $5 of credit every month without a card, and the browser, the Store and the MCP server all draw from it. Browserbase's Free plan includes 1 browser hour with no CAPTCHA solving, and Browserless's free plan 1,000 units with 2-minute sessions.

Does the Scrape.ly browser solve CAPTCHAs?

It solves Cloudflare Turnstile challenges by default, with no per-solve fee: you pay for browser time and traffic only. It also uses anti-bot fingerprints and residential IPs, which keep many challenges from appearing in the first place. Our guide to CAPTCHA solving for scraping explains the approaches.

Can I connect to the Scrape.ly browser from my own server?

No. It accepts connections from Actor runs on Scrape.ly, which is how it keeps your browser, proxy, scheduling and data in one place with one spending cap. Push your script as an Actor and the platform runs both.

Is there an MCP server for browser agents?

Browserbase documents its own MCP server. Scrape.ly's hosted MCP server at https://mcp.scrape.ly gives agents every Store Actor and your own, including Actors that drive the Scrape.ly browser. See AI browser agents for how browser agents compare with scrapers, and Tavily alternatives for search APIs built for agents.