Rating certificate · AW/26-09/02526 Sept 2026
66of 100
Browser Use
Browser Use (browser-use.com) · Browser & computer use
No. 1 of 2 in categoryhigh confidenceTrust BOpen source
The Register / Browser & computer use / Browser Use
Register entry · Browser & computer use · updated 26 Sept 2026
Browser Use
Browser Use is an MIT-licensed Python library that turns a natural-language task into browser actions driven by an LLM, plus a pay-as-you-go cloud offering hosted browsers (stealth, proxies, CAPTCHA solving) and hosted agents. It works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and local Ollama models, and the vendor also ships its own browser model (BU2). Telemetry to PostHog is on by default and can be disabled with an environment variable.
What reviewers and users praise
- Largest community and example library among open-source browser-agent frameworks (Gonsalvez on dev.to; 116k GitHub stars)
- Model-agnostic, including local models (Scrapfly, ByteTunnels)
- Quick to start for Python developers (Reddit r/AI_Agents thread 1slvuta)
What they criticise
- Users report hallucinated clicks and brittleness on long multi-step workflows (Reddit r/AI_Agents, r/LocalLLaMA)
- Slow and token-heavy because every action is an LLM round trip (ByteTunnels; HN comments)
- Telemetry with task-level data is on by default (vendor telemetry doc; HN comment 2026-09-18)
Experts vs the crowdcrowd cooler by 31
Experts67
Crowd36
| Price | Free, paid from $0.02 |
|---|---|
| Use it via | API, CLI, Web app |
| Runs on | macos, linux, windows, web |
| Licence | MIT |
| Updated | Evidence collected 26 Sept 2026 |
How the rating was worked out
Weights for Browser & computer use: adoption 35%, experts 40%, crowd 25%. Pillars without enough evidence are left out and the others re-weighted. The method.
| Adoption & momentumweight 35% | 87 | GitHub stars 116k → 93 · PyPI monthly downloads 7.4M → 88 · 8 releases in 90 days → 80reach × 0.7 + momentum × 0.3 |
|---|---|---|
| Expertsindependent reviews · weight 40% | 67 | 3 independent reviews (2 positive · 1 mixed · 0 negative), averaged toward 50 for small samples. |
| Crowdcommunity sample · weight 25% | 36 | 12 dated posts from hackernews, reddit: 2 positive · 3 mixed · 7 negative (positive + ½ mixed) ÷ n, averaged toward 50 for small samples |
| Rating | 66 | high confidence (3 of 3 pillars, 12 community posts). |
Evidence checks. 1 item could not be checked at the source (the page could not be fetched, or the quote is from a comment under the linked post); kept and marked “unverified”. How evidence is checked.
Trust & safety
Seven dimensions graded A–D from documented facts. Overall: B.
C
Permission model
The library executes the LLM's chosen browser actions automatically; there is no per-action approval step by default. Domain restrictions (allowed_domains) and the sensitive_data mechanism are opt-in parameters. source
B
Data access scope
Agent can act on any site the browser reaches, including sites logged in via a reused Chrome profile; per-domain secrets and allowed-domain lists are documented but optional. source
A
Data storage
The MIT library runs locally with the user's own browser and LLM key; the cloud service is optional. source
C
Data retention & training
Open-source telemetry is on by default and 'may include usage metadata and task-level data such as task instructions, URLs visited, action traces, errors, and final results', used to 'develop, and improve Browser Use and related offerings'; opt-out via ANONYMIZED_TELEMETRY=false. Zero data retention is offered only on Enterprise. source
C
Incident history (24 months)
Critical CVE-2025-47241 (allowed_domains bypass) published May 2025 and fixed. In March 2026 the compromised LiteLLM 1.82.7/1.82.8 PyPI releases reached some browser-use installs as a dependency (user report on HN). An April 2026 HN commenter said an RCE report (GHSA-r2x7-6hq9-qp7v) had gone unanswered for ~40 days; that advisory is not public, so its status is unverified. source
A
Compliance
Vendor states it is SOC 2 Type II compliant, audited by Accorp Partners for the period 17 July to 17 October 2025; report available on request. source
A
Transparency
MIT-licensed source with public GitHub releases. source
The experts
3 named independent reviews found; dated reviews from the last 12 months are scored.
- positive
If you want the largest community and ecosystem with the most examples, browser-use is the safe bet.
Steven Gonsalvez (dev.to) · 26 Apr 2026 · dev.to - mixed
A task that Playwright finishes in 2 seconds might take Browser Use 30 seconds because every action requires a round-trip to the language model.
Arman Hossain (ByteTunnels) · 12 Feb 2026 · bytetunnels.com - positive
Best open-source framework: Browser Use, with a state-of-the-art 89.1% success rate on the WebVoyager benchmark.
Firecrawl blog · 16 Jun 2026 · unverified · firecrawl.dev
The crowd
12 coded posts from hackernews, reddit.
2 positive3 mixed7 negative
- negative
the (enabled by default) telemetry they send to PostHog is CRAZY. Especially the browser-harness component can leak credentials to PostHog left and right.
Jev Ultrafast thread · 18 Sept 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - positive
browser-use is a lot more capable and generally more efficient, and a lot easier to embed in other programs than Claude's driver.
NeoBrowser thread · 18 Aug 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - negative
Browser use is a token hog
Show HN: Browser Harness · 26 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - mixed
Browser-use is incredible. Solving captchas via proxy is a wild experience when steering in the browser. One issue I have is the pricing.
Show HN: Browser Harness · 25 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - negative
I submitted a remote code execution to the browser-use about 40 days ago. GHSA-r2x7-6hq9-qp7v I am a bit stunned by the lack of response.
Show HN: Browser Harness · 24 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - negative
Application error: a server-side exception has occurred while loading cloud.browser-use.com Great first impression!
Prove you are a robot: CAPTCHAs for agents · 19 Apr 2026 · news.ycombinator.com - mixed
browser-use: improved from a few months ago, but still can get brittle on long chains.
r/LocalLLaMA · 27 Jun 2026 · reddit.com - mixed
I remember trying browser use a few months back and it was ok but would fall apart after long workflows.
r/LocalLLaMA · 27 Jun 2026 · reddit.com
Pricing
As published, checked 26 Sept 2026.
| Plan | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Open-source library | Free | MIT; bring your own LLM key |
| Browsers (pay-as-you-go) | $0.02 / per browser-hour | Credits from $5, no subscription; residential proxy $5/GB; $15 free credits for eligible signups |
| Browser Use Agents (pay-as-you-go) | Custom | Model cost plus 20% service fee, plus browser time and traffic |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom concurrency, SLAs, data policy; SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA support, zero data retention |
Recent changes
Ranked alongside
Other ranked entries in Browser & computer use.
StagehandBrowserbase65
Sources
Every figure above traces to one of these, observed up to 26 Sept 2026.