Anchor Browser vs Scrapeless
Both rent you a managed Chromium in their cloud with stealth, proxies and CAPTCHA solving. Anchor Browser is built for agents that work inside web apps, with managed logins and hosted browser agents, while Scrapeless is built for scraping, with many short sessions, cheap residential traffic and ready-made scrapers.
The companies and products
Anchor Browser
Anchor Browser is cloud browser infrastructure for AI agents: managed Chromium sessions you control over CDP or a REST API, plus a hosted browser agent.
Anchor Browser is a different kind of product from boat. Each session is a headful Chromium in its own VM that is erased when the session ends, and you drive it with Playwright or Puppeteer, with mouse and keyboard calls, or by sending a task in plain words to its hosted agent. It adds managed logins with MFA, residential proxies, stealth and CAPTCHA solving, and its own docs tell you to run your agent's code in a separate sandbox and connect to the browser over CDP.
Scrapeless
Scrapeless is a web scraping company that sells Agent Browser, a managed cloud browser, along with AI scrapers, a web unlocker and proxies.
Scrapeless Agent Browser is a different kind of product from boat: you get a Chromium browser in their cloud that you reach over a CDP WebSocket with Puppeteer or Playwright, an MCP server or their agent-browser CLI. Each session gets a random fingerprint, CAPTCHA solving and a residential proxy, and you pay per browser-hour plus proxy traffic. It is built for teams that scrape or automate many websites, not a machine to run their own code on.
Which use cases each one fits
For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “28th cheapest of 367” means 27 of the other 366 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.
| Use case and its workload | Anchor Browser: price rank | Scrapeless: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software factory needs a shell, Docker and a place to build and test, which neither managed browser gives you. | 180th of 367, with limits $2,000 a month | 96th of 367, with limits $868 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB An assistant that runs all month needs a machine that keeps its state; Anchor Browser sessions run 180 minutes by default and Scrapeless sessions 3 minutes, and both keep only profiles or volume files. | 71st of 366, with limits $1,845 a month | 224th of 366, with limits $2,628 a month | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month | 325th of 345, with limits $2,171 a month | 246th of 345, with limits $249 a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Giving each user a sandbox means a machine they can run code on; neither sells that, and Anchor Browser's Growth plan stops at 200 browsers at once. | 283rd of 361, with limits $2,000 a month | 354th of 361, with limits $741 a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 298th of 360, with limits $12,510 a month | 249th of 360, with limits $3,580 a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month | 357th of 364, with limits $2,000 a month | 347th of 364, with limits $399 a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month | 284th of 377, with limits $500 a month | 229th of 377, with limits $97 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box needs SSH and a shell, and both products expose only a browser over CDP and a live view. | 222nd of 368, with limits $42 a month | 234th of 368, with limits $59 a month | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Both act inside a browser only; boat streams a full Linux desktop at 60fps, so a computer-use agent can open apps beyond the browser. | 173rd of 369, with limits $500 a month | 122nd of 369, with limits $274 a month | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month Both are built for this; Scrapeless ranks 14th with cheaper sessions, Anchor Browser ranks 28th with managed logins and hosted agents, and boat ranks 7th when the agent also needs a shell or files. | 28th cheapest of 367 $560 a month | 14th cheapest of 367 $274 a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month Both fit startup-scale bots with proxies and CAPTCHA solving included; boat gives each bot a whole machine whose disk keeps its files. | 50th cheapest of 346 $500 a month | 33rd cheapest of 346 $370 a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month This is where both shine: Anchor Browser ranks 5th and Scrapeless 6th, because sites with strong bot checks need residential IPs, fingerprints and CAPTCHA solving, which boat does not include. | 5th of 338, with limits $6,175 a month | 6th of 338, with limits $7,020 a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month | 334th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month | 200th of 360, with limits $199 a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
| macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Anchor Browser | Scrapeless | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A managed headful Chromium in its own VM, erased when the session ends | A managed Chromium browser you reach over a CDP WebSocket | A full Linux VM with its own kernel and root, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Shell, code and Docker | No shell; from Growth you can run TypeScript snippets against the page | No shell on the machine running the browser | SSH, any language, Docker, systemd and nested virtualization (/dev/kvm) |
| Session length | 180 minutes by default, can be raised with no upper limit; ends after 5 idle minutes by default | 3 minutes by default, 15 minutes recommended at most, longer allowed | No cap on paid plans; a stopped sandbox keeps its disk |
| State between sessions | Profiles keep cookies and cache, and up to 10 volumes keep files | Browser profiles keep cookies, storage, cache and logins; no files on disk | The whole disk is saved every minute and on stop; fork a running sandbox |
| Stealth and CAPTCHAs | CAPTCHA solving from Starter; full stealth Chromium on Growth; unique fingerprints on Enterprise | Random fingerprint per session and CAPTCHA solving included on every plan | Chromium on datacenter IPs; no fingerprint rotation or CAPTCHA solving |
| Proxies | Residential proxies with country and city targeting and sticky IPs, $8 per GB | Over 70 million residential IPs in 195 countries, from $1.80 per GB | None managed; you can run your own proxy client inside the VM |
| Logging in to sites | Managed identities with MFA keep logins across sessions, from Starter | Credential store and 1Password link that fill website logins | Your agent logs in itself; boat switches AI credentials to another account when credits run out |
| Agents | Hosted browser agents (browser-use, OpenAI, Gemini and Anthropic computer use) with human-in-the-loop and webhooks | A CLI skill and an MCP server so an agent on your own machine drives the cloud browser | Claude Code, Codex and other coding agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Ready-made scrapers | None; you write the automation or send a task to its agent | AI Scraper tasks for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and more, plus crawl and search tools | None; you write or run your own |
| Browsers at once | 5, 25, 50, 200 and 500+ by plan | 50, 100, 200 or 400 by plan, custom above that | Many sandboxes at once; at 1,000 short jobs the $2,000 plan queues the starts |
| Desktop and live view | Embeddable live view of the browser, with mouse, keyboard and screenshot calls | Live URL to watch and control the browser, plus session recording | A full Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, or Chromium alone; embed it |
| Hosting | No ports of your own; only the CDP socket and the live view URL | No way to serve your own ports | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP |
| Keeping secrets from the agent | Secret values are hidden from the model and typed into the page | Stored logins are filled into the browser | Credentials proxy: real keys never enter the sandbox, for any HTTPS API |
| Regions | US by default; EU, Asia and Australia on Growth; your own cloud or on-premise on Enterprise | Residential exits in 195 countries; sessions run across more than 12 data centers | EU only (Germany, Finland, France) |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Anchor Browser | Scrapeless | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Docker inside | No | No | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | No | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | No | Not published | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | No | No | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | No | Yes |
| Pause/resume | No | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | No | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | No | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | No | Not published | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | No | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | Yes | Yes | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | No | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | No | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | No | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | No | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes | No |
| GPU | No | No | No |
| Windows | No | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | Yes | No | No |
| BYOC | Yes | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | Yes | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | No | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement for either. Anchor Browser and Scrapeless sell browser-hours and do not publish the CPU or memory behind each browser, and neither is in the CPU benchmark. boat scored 26.69 runs per second on the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Anchor Browser and Scrapeless have no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.
Pricing in five scenarios
Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.
| Scenario | Anchor Browser, a month | Scrapeless, a month | boat, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days | $7 · Free · with limits | $399 · Business · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $42 · Free · with limits | $399 · Business · with limits | $26 · $20/mo |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $500 · Team · with limits | $570 · Business · with limits | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $2,000 · Growth · with limits | $399 · Business · with limits | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $2,510 · Growth · with limits | $716 · Business · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Anchor Browser: Anchor Browser bills $0.05 per browser-hour, counted to the nearest minute, plus $0.01 per browser created, paid from plan credits worth $1 each (Starter $50, Team $500, Growth $2,000). Proxy traffic is $8 per GB, direct traffic $0.20 per GB, and AI tasks are priced per step.
Scrapeless: Scrapeless plans of $49, $199 or $399 a month are prepaid into a balance, and unused funds do not roll over. Browser time runs from $0.09 an hour down to $0.072, CAPTCHA solving is included, and residential traffic is billed per GB from $1.80.
Scrapeless: Plans start at $20 a month, and the whole fee is usage credit. You pay per second while a sandbox runs, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
None of the five scenarios fits either one as written, because each asks for a general machine and both sell a browser session with no shell and no published size. Scrapeless sessions are built to last minutes and keep no disk, while Anchor Browser sessions end after 180 minutes unless raised and erase their VM. For bursts, Scrapeless allows 400 at once on its $399 plan, while Anchor Browser stops at 200 on Growth, so 1,000 short jobs need custom or Enterprise plans on both. boat fits four scenarios; at 1,000 short jobs at once its $2,000 plan queues the starts.
| Scenario | Anchor Browser | Scrapeless | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays |
|
| None that bite |
| One agent that never stops |
|
| None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel |
|
| None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users |
|
| None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
|
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use Anchor Browser when
your agents work inside web apps that need logins with MFA, you want hosted browser agents you send tasks to, or you need longer sessions, more regions or your own cloud.
- Logins that stay logged in. For agents that work inside web apps with no API: managed identities with MFA keep logins across sessions.
- Browser agents as a service. For teams that want to send a task in plain words: hosted agents, several computer-use models, human-in-the-loop and webhooks.
- Longer sessions and more regions. Sessions run 180 minutes by default with no upper limit, in the US, EU, Asia, Australia or your own cloud.
Use Scrapeless when
you scrape at volume: many short sessions with fingerprints and CAPTCHA solving included, cheap residential traffic and ready-made scrapers.
- Stealth on every plan. For scraping sites with bot checks: a random fingerprint per session and CAPTCHA solving included at no extra charge.
- Cheaper residential traffic. For traffic-heavy scraping: residential proxy traffic starts at $1.80 per GB, against $8 per GB on Anchor Browser.
- A scraping toolkit. For teams that want data, not browsers: ready-made AI scrapers, crawls and search tools behind one API key.
Where boat fits
Anchor Browser and Scrapeless both sell a browser, not a machine. If what you are really running is agents that browse and then also write code, keep files or serve something, boat gives each one a whole Linux VM with Chromium and a desktop inside. Keep Anchor Browser or Scrapeless for the pages with strong bot checks, and call them from boat over CDP.
A whole machine around the browser
Neither gives you a shell. Anchor Browser's own docs say to run your agent's code in a separate sandbox, and with Scrapeless your code runs somewhere you manage, so you pay for and wire up two services.
Work that survives the session
Anchor Browser erases its VM after each session and Scrapeless sessions default to 3 minutes with only a browser profile saved. On boat the whole disk is saved every minute, a stopped sandbox costs nothing, and you can fork a running one.
A desktop and agents inside it
Both act only inside a browser. boat streams a full Linux desktop at 60fps, comes with Claude Code, Codex and other coding agents you drive from outside, and keeps real API keys out of the sandbox with its credentials proxy.
Use boat when your agent does more than browse: it needs a shell, files, Docker, a desktop or a server next to the browser, and it has to keep its work between runs. Compare it one to one: boat vs Anchor Browser and boat vs Scrapeless.
Questions people ask
Is Anchor Browser cheaper than Scrapeless?
It depends on the job. In our scenarios one agent running all month comes to $42 on Anchor Browser and $399 on Scrapeless, but 300 sandboxes for your users come to $2,000 against $399, and 1,000 short jobs at once $2,510 against $716. Neither fits these scenarios as a general machine, and proxy traffic is billed on top, at $8 per GB on Anchor Browser and from $1.80 on Scrapeless.
Which is better at getting past bot checks?
Both are built for it. Scrapeless includes a random fingerprint and CAPTCHA solving on every plan, while Anchor Browser solves CAPTCHAs from Starter and saves full stealth for Growth and unique fingerprints for Enterprise. boat runs Chromium on datacenter IPs.
Which is faster?
Neither publishes the CPU or memory behind a browser, and neither is in the CPU benchmark, so there is no fair speed comparison. Scrapeless says its sessions start in under 2 seconds. boat scored 26.69 runs per second on the hpc-sandbox-benchmarks Node.js test at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Can Anchor Browser or Scrapeless run Docker?
No. Both give you a browser with no shell on the machine underneath, and Anchor Browser's docs say to run agent code in a separate sandbox. boat gives you a whole Linux VM with Docker, systemd and root.
How long can a session run?
An Anchor Browser session ends after 180 minutes by default, and you can raise that with no upper limit. A Scrapeless session closes after 3 minutes by default, with 15 minutes recommended at most, though longer is allowed. A boat sandbox has no session cap on paid plans.
Can I use either one from a boat sandbox?
Yes. Both are reached over CDP with Puppeteer or Playwright, so an agent on boat can open a stealth browser when a site needs one and keep its code, files and other tools on the boat machine.
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