boat vs Browser Use
Browser Use rents you a stealth cloud browser and a hosted agent that drives it. boat gives your agent a whole Linux machine with a browser and desktop inside, where it can also run code, Docker and servers for as long as the job takes.
Where boat stands out
A whole machine around the browser
A boat sandbox is a full Linux VM with root, a shell, Docker and systemd, and Chromium and a desktop already inside. Your agent can browse a site, then save what it found, run a script on it, build an app and serve it, all on the same machine.
No 4-hour stop, and nothing lost
On paid plans a boat sandbox runs as long as you want. Its disk is saved every minute and when it stops, a stopped sandbox costs nothing, and you can fork a running one to try several paths at once.
Any agent, driven from outside, with keys kept out
Claude Code, Codex and five other coding agents come preinstalled, and you prompt, steer and follow them through one API. A credentials proxy keeps real API keys outside the sandbox for any HTTPS API, and a 60fps desktop lets them use apps beyond the browser.
The companies and products
boat
boat.dev runs sandboxes for AI agents: each one is a full Linux VM with its own kernel.
You start a machine with one command or one API call, then SSH in, run Docker, open a desktop, or let a built-in agent (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others) work in it. The disk stays between sessions, and a stopped sandbox costs nothing.
- Isolation
- Full VM per sandbox, own kernel
- Regions
- EU: Germany, Finland, France
Browser Use
Browser Use makes the popular open-source browser-agent library and runs Browser Use Cloud, a service of managed browsers and a hosted agent that uses them.
Browser Use Cloud is a different kind of product from boat: you get a hardened Chromium browser in their cloud that you drive over CDP with Playwright or Puppeteer, or a hosted agent that you send tasks to through an API. It comes with stealth fingerprints, CAPTCHA solving and residential proxies, and you pay per browser-hour. It is built for teams that need many browsers that get past anti-bot checks, 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. “3rd cheapest of 367” means 2 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 | boat: price rank | Browser Use: 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 a managed browser does not give you. | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month | 48th of 367, with limits $301 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 going; Browser Use agent browsers stop after four hours. | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month | 63rd of 366, with limits $750 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month | 216th of 345, with limits $71 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month | 199th of 361, with limits $270 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month | 227th of 360, with limits $1,010 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month Agent evals that mix browsing with running code fit better on a full machine you can fork for every run. | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month | 226th of 364, with limits $90 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month | 219th of 377, with limits $64 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month | 212th of 368, with limits $25 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Computer-use agents that work outside the browser need a real desktop; boat streams a full Linux desktop at 60fps, while Browser Use shows only the browser tab. | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month | 83rd of 369, with limits $133 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month This is what Browser Use is built for: many short browser tasks with stealth and proxies included; boat fits too when the agent also needs a shell, files or code. | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $140 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month For startup-scale scraping and bots, boat gives each bot a whole machine with a browser, a disk that keeps its files, and no 4-hour stop. | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month | 14th cheapest of 346 $198 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month Mass scraping of sites with strong bot checks needs rotating residential IPs, fingerprints and CAPTCHA solving, which Browser Use includes and boat does not. | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month | Cheapest of 338 $2,950 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month Red-team agents need their own tools and a shell; Browser Use gives them a browser only. | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month | 50th of 360, with limits $68 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 |
| 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 |
Key features
| Feature | boat | Browser Use |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A full Linux VM with its own kernel and root, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts | A managed Chromium browser you reach over CDP, or a hosted agent you send tasks to |
| Shell, code and Docker | Yes: SSH, any language, Docker, systemd and nested virtualization | No shell access to the machine running the browser |
| Session length | No cap on paid plans; you set the time to live | Agent browsers stop after 4 hours, and idle ones are cleaned up after about 20 minutes |
| State between sessions | The whole disk is saved every minute and on stop; fork a running sandbox | Browser profiles keep cookies and logins; workspaces sync up to 950 MiB of files between runs |
| Desktop and live view | A full Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, or Chrome alone; embed it, record it | Live view of the browser you can embed for review or takeover, plus a recording |
| Stealth and CAPTCHAs | Chromium on datacenter IPs; no fingerprint rotation or CAPTCHA solving | Hardened Chromium fork, randomized fingerprints and automatic CAPTCHA solving (off in the EU) |
| Proxies | None managed; you can run your own proxy client inside the VM | Residential proxies in 195+ countries, on by default, or bring your own |
| Agents | Seven coding agents preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API | Their own hosted browser agent with a choice of models, a session queue and an events API |
| Keeping secrets from the agent | Credentials proxy: real keys never enter the sandbox, for any HTTPS API | Secrets typed into the page by alias; the model never sees them, but the value does reach the browser |
| Hosting | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected by default; raw TCP | No way to serve your own ports |
| Outbound rules | Open internet; you can add firewall rules inside the VM | Per-session allowed and blocked domain lists |
| Regions | EU only (Germany, Finland, France) | US, plus an EU deployment in Frankfurt |
| Open source | No | The browser-use agent library is MIT and runs on your own machine |
| Compliance and transparency | SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status and data retention policy. | SOC 2 |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | boat | Browser Use |
|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Not published |
| Docker inside | Yes | No |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No |
| Root | Yes | Not published |
| Systemd | Yes | Not published |
| Desktop GUI | Yes | No |
| Browser | Yes | Yes |
| Computer-use API | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | No |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | No |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | No |
| Fork/clone | Yes | No |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | No |
| Memory fork | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Not published |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | No |
| Idle auto-stop | No | Yes |
| Wake on request | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | Yes | No |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Not published |
| Public IPv4 | No | No |
| Egress allowlist | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy for any API | Yes | No |
| Preinstalled agents | Yes | No |
| Agent harness API | Yes | No |
| MCP server | No | Yes |
| GPU | No | No |
| Windows | No | No |
| Arm64 | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | Yes |
| BYOC | No | No |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Not published |
| Spend limits | Yes | Not published |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Yes | No |
| Audit logs | No | Not published |
| SSO | No | No |
| SOC 2 | No | Yes |
| HIPAA | No | Yes |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Yes | Not published |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement. Browser Use sells browser-hours and does not publish the CPU or memory behind each browser, and it is not 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. Browser Use has 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 | boat, a month | Browser Use, 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 | $20 · $20/mo | $7 · Pay as you go · with limits |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $26 · $20/mo | $25 · Pay as you go · with limits |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats | $178 · Spend tier 50 · with limits |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats | $150 · Spend tier 500 · with limits |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits | $210 · Spend tier 1000 · with limits |
boat: 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.
Browser Use: Browser Use bills $0.02 per browser-hour, rounded up to whole minutes, from prepaid credits that never expire. Traffic is extra ($5 per GB through the residential proxy, which is on by default, or $0.20 per GB direct), and agent runs add model tokens plus a 20% fee.
Limits in those scenarios
No scenario in the table fits Browser Use as written, because each one asks for a general machine and Browser Use sells a browser session with no shell, of a size it does not publish. Its agent browsers also stop after four hours, which rules out the workday and always-on agents. Its spend tiers count lifetime payments, not a monthly fee: 50 sessions need $200 paid (the docs still say $100), and 1,000 need $25,000. boat fits every scenario except 1,000 short jobs at once, where its $2,000 plan queues the starts.
| Scenario | boat | Browser Use |
|---|---|---|
| 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 Browser Use when
you need lots of short browser tasks on sites with strong bot checks, with residential proxies and CAPTCHA solving handled for you.
- Built to get past bot checks. For scraping sites with strong bot checks: hardened Chromium, random fingerprints, CAPTCHA solving and residential proxies in 195+ countries.
- A browser agent as a service. For teams that want to send a task and get a result: a hosted browser agent, many models, up to 1,000 browsers at once.
- Open source and two regions. Its agent library is MIT and runs on your own machine, and the cloud runs in the US and in Frankfurt.
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 working for hours or days.
- A whole machine around the browser. With Browser Use, the browser lives in their cloud and everything else runs somewhere you manage. Each download, file and result has to cross between the two, and you run a second machine for the code.
- No 4-hour stop, and nothing lost. Browser Use agent browsers stop after four hours and keep only cookies, logins and a small file workspace. A job that runs all day has to be split up and rebuilt from those pieces.
- Any agent, driven from outside, with keys kept out. Browser Use runs its own browser agent, and its secrets are typed into the page, where the page and the browser can read them. An agent that also writes code or calls APIs needs its keys kept somewhere it cannot reach.
Questions people ask
Is Browser Use a sandbox like boat?
No. Browser Use Cloud gives you a managed browser and a hosted browser agent, with no shell on the machine underneath. boat gives you a whole Linux VM with Chromium, a desktop, Docker and root, so the browser is one tool among many.
Is boat cheaper than Browser Use?
Not for browser time alone. At $0.02 per browser-hour, Browser Use costs less in all five scenarios, for example $178 against $317 for 50 agents in parallel. But it fits none of them as a general machine, and proxy traffic and model tokens are billed on top.
Can I run Browser Use's open-source agent on boat?
Yes. The browser-use library is MIT, and a boat sandbox has Python, Chromium and a desktop, so you can run it there with your own model keys behind boat's credentials proxy. You give up Browser Use Cloud's stealth browser and residential proxies unless you bring your own.
How long can a Browser Use session run?
Browser Use agent browsers have a four-hour hard timeout, and idle ones are cleaned up after about 20 minutes. A boat sandbox has no session cap on paid plans and keeps its disk when it stops.
Which one is better at getting past bot checks?
Browser Use. It runs a hardened Chromium fork with random fingerprints, solves CAPTCHAs automatically in the US, and routes traffic through residential proxies. boat runs Chromium on datacenter IPs.
Is boat SOC 2 compliant?
SOC 2 is in progress. We're open about where we stand: live status at status.ascii.dev and our data retention policy at docs.boat.dev/data-retention.
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