Browserbase vs Browser Use
Both rent you cloud browsers that an agent drives over CDP, and neither gives you a shell on the machine. Browserbase builds a wider web platform around its browser, with search, fetch, functions and four regions, while Browser Use puts stealth first, bills a much lower browser-hour rate and makes the popular open source browser-use agent.
The companies and products
Browserbase
Browserbase calls itself the complete platform to build and deploy agents that browse and interact with the web like humans: browsers, search, fetch, functions, model access and identity behind one API key.
Its core product is a headless Chrome session you drive over CDP with Playwright, Puppeteer or its open source Stagehand SDK, with proxies, CAPTCHA solving, saved browser profiles (Contexts), live view and session replays. Around it sit Search and Fetch APIs, short TypeScript Functions that run next to the browser, a Model Gateway and hosted Agents that work from a plain language goal. It is a browser platform, not a general sandbox: you get a browser, not a shell or root on the machine, so this page compares where the two overlap, which is agents that browse.
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. “24th cheapest of 367” means 23 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 | Browserbase: price rank | Browser Use: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A coding agent needs a shell, Docker and a disk, which neither cloud browser gives, so builds and tests fit boat. | 140th of 367, with limits $1,255 a month | 48th of 367, with limits $301 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 hits Browserbase's 6-hour cap or Browser Use's 4-hour cap; boat has no session cap on paid plans. | 259th of 366, with limits $3,699 a month | 63rd of 366, with limits $750 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 | 270th of 345, with limits $382 a month | 216th of 345, with limits $71 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 | 250th of 361, with limits $1,099 a month | 199th of 361, with limits $270 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 | 264th of 360, with limits $5,049 a month | 227th of 360, with limits $1,010 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 | 349th of 364, with limits $449 a month | 226th of 364, with limits $90 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 | 244th of 377, with limits $152 a month | 219th of 377, with limits $64 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB | 251st of 368, with limits $96 a month | 212th of 368, with limits $25 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 show only a browser, so an agent that has to use other apps fits boat, which streams a full Linux desktop at 60fps. | 159th of 369, with limits $416 a month | 83rd of 369, with limits $133 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 This is home ground for both: Browser Use ranks 3rd, ahead of boat at 7th and Browserbase at 24th, mostly because its browser-hour costs less. | 24th cheapest of 367 $449 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $140 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 At startup scale boat ranks 6th, Browser Use 14th and Browserbase 55th; sites with light bot checks do not need residential proxies. | 55th cheapest of 346 $537 a month | 14th cheapest of 346 $198 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 For sites with strong bot checks Browser Use ranks 1st, with stealth and residential proxies on by default, and Browserbase ranks 13th, with Verified browsers only on Scale. | 13th of 338, with limits $9,799 a month | Cheapest of 338 $2,950 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 | 229th of 360, with limits $291 a month | 50th of 360, with limits $68 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 | Browserbase | Browser Use | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kind of product | Managed Chrome sessions, plus Search, Fetch, Functions, a Model Gateway and a hosted Agent | Managed stealth Chromium over CDP, plus a hosted browser agent you send tasks to | A full Linux VM per sandbox, with a desktop and Chromium inside |
| Shell, code and Docker | No shell on the browser VM; Functions run short TypeScript jobs, up to 900 seconds | No shell on the machine running the browser | Root, SSH, any language, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm on a VM with its own kernel |
| Session length | 6 hours on Developer and Startup, 15 minutes on Free | Agent browsers stop after 4 hours; idle ones are cleaned up after about 20 minutes | No cap on paid plans; you set the time to live |
| State between sessions | The VM is rebuilt each time; a Context keeps the browser profile | Browser profiles keep logins; workspaces sync up to 950 MiB of files between runs | The whole disk is saved every minute and on stop; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Fork | No fork; a new session starts fresh or loads a Context | No fork or snapshot endpoint | Fork a running sandbox with its disk |
| Stealth and CAPTCHAs | Basic stealth and CAPTCHA solving on paid plans; Verified browsers on Scale | Hardened Chromium fork, stealth on by default, fingerprints per session, CAPTCHA solving (off in the EU) | Chromium on datacenter IPs; no CAPTCHA solving |
| Residential proxies | 200+ countries, off by default; 1 GB or 5 GB included, then $12 or $10 per GB | 195+ countries, on by default, $5 per GB; or bring your own | None managed; run your own proxy client inside the VM |
| Hosted agent | Its own Agent from a plain language goal, with built-in tools only | Its own browser agent, a choice of models, a session queue and an events API | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Seeing the work | Live view, session replays and logs of the browser | Embeddable live view of the browser for review or takeover, plus a recording | A full Linux desktop streamed at 60fps, embeddable, with computer use on any app |
| Keeping keys from the agent | Model Gateway for OpenAI, Anthropic and Google; agent variables hidden from the model | Secrets typed into the page by alias; the model never sees them, but the browser does | Credentials proxy: real keys stay outside the sandbox, for any HTTPS API |
| Hosting | No ports to host on; CDP and live view links only | No way to serve your own ports | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IP |
| Outbound rules | Experimental allowed domains list for top-level pages only | Allowed and blocked domain lists per session | Open internet; add firewall rules inside the VM |
| Regions | Oregon, Virginia, Frankfurt and Singapore | US, and Frankfurt with a smaller feature set | EU only (Germany, Finland and France) |
| How you pay | $20 or $99 plans with 100 or 500 browser hours, then $0.12 or $0.10 per hour, by the minute | $0.02 per browser-hour from prepaid credits, by the minute; concurrency grows with lifetime spend | Monthly plan from $20, all of it usage credit spent per second; stopped sandboxes are free |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Browserbase | Browser Use | 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 | No | Yes | Yes |
| SSH | No | No | Yes |
| Persistent disk | No | Yes | 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 | No | 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 | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | Yes | 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 | No | Yes | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | Yes | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | Not published | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | Yes | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Yes | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement for either. Browserbase and Browser Use sell browser-hours, do not publish the CPU or memory behind a browser, and are not in the CPU benchmark. boat scored 26.69 runs per second on the 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. Browserbase and Browser Use 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 | Browserbase, a month | Browser Use, 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 | $99 · Startup · with limits | $7 · Pay as you go · with limits | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $122 · Startup · with limits | $25 · Pay as you go · 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 | $841 · Startup · with limits | $178 · Spend tier 50 · 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 | $499 · Startup · with limits | $150 · Spend tier 500 · 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 | $1,049 · Startup · with limits | $210 · Spend tier 1000 · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Browserbase: Plans include browser hours: 100 on Developer ($20) and 500 on Startup ($99), then $0.12 or $0.10 per browser hour, billed by the minute with a one-minute minimum. Proxy data is extra after 1 GB or 5 GB ($12 or $10 per GB), and Search, Fetch and Agents calls have their own allowances.
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.
Browser Use: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
No scenario in the table fits either one as written, because each asks for a general machine and both sell a browser session of a size they do not publish. The session caps rule out the workday and always-on agents: 6 hours on Browserbase, 4 hours for Browser Use agent browsers. Concurrency works differently: Browserbase gives 100 at once on Startup, so 300 sandboxes and 1,000 short jobs need Scale through sales, while Browser Use raises it with lifetime payments, with 1,000 sessions at $25,000 paid. boat fits every scenario except 1,000 short jobs at once, where starts above 90 a minute are queued.
| Scenario | Browserbase | Browser Use | 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 Browserbase when
your agent works only on the web and you want more around the browser: Search and Fetch APIs, Functions, 6-hour sessions, set concurrency per plan, or browsers in the US and Singapore.
- More than a browser for the web. Useful when some lookups need no browser: Search and Fetch APIs, short Functions next to the browser, and a Model Gateway.
- Four regions. Useful if your users or target sites are in Asia or on both US coasts: Oregon, Virginia, Frankfurt and Singapore.
- Longer sessions, set concurrency. Useful for longer browsing jobs: sessions run up to 6 hours, and 25 or 100 browsers come with the plan from day one.
Use Browser Use when
you run lots of short browser tasks on sites with strong bot checks and want stealth and proxies on by default, at the lowest browser-hour rate, with an open source agent you can also run yourself.
- Stealth from the first session. Useful for sites with strong bot checks: a hardened Chromium fork, fingerprints per session and residential proxies, all on by default.
- A much lower browser-hour. Useful for many short browser tasks: $0.02 per browser-hour, billed by the minute from credits that never expire.
- An open source agent. Useful if you want to run the same agent yourself: the browser-use library is MIT, with about 118k GitHub stars.
Where boat fits
If what you are really running is agents that browse and then do work with what they found, both of these give you only half the job. boat gives each agent a full Linux VM with Chromium and a desktop inside, so the same machine can browse, run code, build and serve. For sites that block bots at volume, Browserbase or Browser Use is still the better tool.
A whole machine around the browser
On both, the agent gets a Chrome over CDP and no shell, Docker or root. Code, builds and servers need a second provider, with files crossing between them; Browserbase Functions stop at 900 seconds with no persistent storage.
Runs as long as the job, keeps its disk
Browserbase sessions end at 6 hours and Browser Use agent browsers at 4, and each restarts with only a browser profile or a 950 MiB workspace. boat has no session cap on paid plans, saves the disk every minute and can fork.
Coding agents and keys kept outside
Both run their own browser agent. boat preinstalls Claude Code, Codex and more, driven from outside, and its credentials proxy covers any HTTPS API, where Browserbase's gateway covers only model providers and Browser Use types secrets into the page.
Use boat when your agent browses and also works: installs, builds, Docker and dev servers on a full VM that keeps its disk and runs as long as the task takes, with coding agents and a key proxy built in. Compare it one to one: boat vs Browserbase and boat vs Browser Use.
Questions people ask
Is Browserbase cheaper than Browser Use?
No. For browser time Browser Use costs less in all five scenarios, for example $178 against $841 for 50 agents in parallel, and $150 against $499 for sandboxes for your users. Residential proxy traffic is also lower on Browser Use at $5 per GB, against $12 or $10 on Browserbase after the included data.
Which is faster, Browserbase or Browser Use?
There is no comparable measurement. Neither publishes the CPU or memory behind a browser, and neither is in the CPU benchmark, so no speed ratio can be given. boat scored 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Which is better at getting past bot checks?
Browser Use ranks 1st for mass scraping of protected sites and Browserbase 13th. Browser Use turns on its hardened Chromium, per-session fingerprints and residential proxies by default, while Browserbase keeps its Verified browsers for the Scale plan. Browser Use does not solve CAPTCHAs automatically in its EU deployment.
How long can a session run on Browserbase and Browser Use?
Up to 6 hours on Browserbase Developer and Startup, and 15 minutes on Free. Browser Use agent browsers stop after 4 hours, and idle ones are cleaned up after about 20 minutes. boat has no session cap on paid plans and keeps the disk when it stops.
Can Browserbase or Browser Use run Docker?
No. Both give you a browser over CDP, not a shell on the machine. Browserbase Functions run short TypeScript jobs with no persistent storage. Every boat sandbox has root, SSH, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Can I use either one with boat?
Yes. An agent on a boat sandbox can open a Browserbase or Browser Use session over CDP for protected sites, and keep its code, files and tools on the boat VM. You can also run the open source browser-use library on boat with Chromium and your own model keys behind the credentials proxy.
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