BROWSERLESS ALTERNATIVE

The Browserless alternative for scraping without the browser scripts

Browserless gives you managed Chrome for your Puppeteer and Playwright code. If what you actually want is the data, WebScraping.AI replaces the whole script with one API call: rendered HTML, clean text, or AI-extracted JSON — proxies and anti-bot included.

2,000 free API credits · No credit card required

WebScraping.AI vs Browserless at a glance

An honest, side-by-side comparison. Verify the numbers — this is a market where you should.

WebScraping.AI Browserless
What you write One HTTP request Puppeteer / Playwright / BrowserQL scripts
Billing unit Fixed credits per request Units of browser time (1 unit = up to 30s per connection)
Cost predictability Known before the request is sent Depends on how long each script runs
Billing on failures Free — only successful requests Browser time is consumed whether or not the script succeeds
Entry plan $29/mo · 250,000 credits $25/mo (billed annually) · 20,000 units
Rotating proxies Datacenter / residential / stealth, per request Residential at 6 units/MB, datacenter 2 units/MB
Anti-bot handling Built into proxy tiers (10–50 credits) BrowserQL + your own evasion logic
AI extraction (Q&A, typed fields) Yes (/ai/question, /ai/fields)
First-party MCP server Yes
Custom JS on the page Yes (js_script parameter) Yes — full browser control
Complex flows (logins, multi-step clicks) Limited (single request + JS snippet) Yes — its core strength
Self-hosting Yes (Docker, SSPL license)
Official SDKs 7 (Python, JS, PHP, Ruby, Go, Java, C#) Works with standard Puppeteer/Playwright libraries

Pricing and credit costs last checked July 2026. Sources: Browserless pricing · WebScraping.AI pricing.

What Browserless does well

No tool is right for everyone. Browserless is a capable product, and these are the areas where it genuinely shines — worth weighing before you switch.

Purpose-built browser infrastructure — if you already have Puppeteer or Playwright code, Browserless runs it at scale with minimal changes.
Full browser control — logins, multi-step interactions, downloads, PDFs, and screenshots are all first-class.
BrowserQL — a query language for stealthy browser automation on protected sites.
Self-hostable — the open core can run in your own Docker/Kubernetes (under the SSPL license).

Why developers look for a Browserless alternative

The most common reasons teams evaluate a switch.

Billing by browser-seconds is hard to predict

A unit is up to 30 seconds of browser time, so your bill is a function of how long every script runs — slow pages, retries, and waits all cost money, and users report surprise overages. WebScraping.AI charges a fixed, published credit price per request, known before you send it.

The scraping logic is still your job

Browserless manages Chrome; you still write and maintain the navigation, selectors, proxy choices, and anti-bot evasion. WebScraping.AI is one abstraction up: send a URL, get rendered HTML, text, or structured JSON back.

Failures still consume browser time

When a target blocks you or a selector hangs, the clock runs anyway — you pay for the attempt. WebScraping.AI only bills successful requests; blocked and errored scrapes are free.

No AI extraction layer

Getting from rendered DOM to clean fields is left to your code or your own LLM pipeline. WebScraping.AI's /ai/question and /ai/fields return answers and typed JSON directly, and a first-party MCP server plugs it into Claude, Cursor, and other agents.

Transparent, published pricing

Every request type has a fixed, published credit cost — no surprises, and you only pay for successful requests.

Request type
No JS
+ JS render
Datacenter proxies
1 credit
5 credits
Residential proxies
10 credits
25 credits
Stealth proxies
50 credits
50 credits
AI extraction add-on
+5 credits

Plans from $29/mo (250k credits) · $99/mo (1M) · $249/mo (3M). Failed requests are always free. See full pricing.

One request instead of a browser script

A typical Browserless scraping job is a Puppeteer script: launch, set up the proxy, navigate, wait for selectors, evade detection, extract, handle the timeout, retry. Each of those lines is yours to maintain, and each second of it is billed.

WebScraping.AI collapses that into a single request: GET /html?url=...&js=true&proxy=residential. Headless Chromium rendering, rotating proxies, retries, and anti-bot routing happen behind the endpoint, and the credit cost (1 / 5 / 10 / 25 / 50 depending on configuration) is published up front. If you need page-side logic, the js_script parameter runs your JavaScript on the page without you owning a browser fleet.

When you genuinely need a browser, use a browser

To be fair to Browserless: some jobs are truly browser jobs. Multi-step authenticated flows, form submissions, file downloads, and pixel-perfect screenshots want real Puppeteer/Playwright control, and Browserless (or self-hosting it) is a good home for them.

But most scraping workloads — fetch a page, render its JavaScript, extract fields — don't need a programmable browser at all. They need the page's data, reliably, at a predictable cost. That's the job WebScraping.AI is shaped around, with AI extraction on top so you often skip parsing entirely.

Switching is one API call

Point your requests at WebScraping.AI — here's the equivalent call in your language.

curl -G "https://api.webscraping.ai/text" \
  --data-urlencode "api_key=YOUR_API_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "url=https://example.com/article" \
  --data-urlencode "text_format=plain"
# Response: the rendered page's clean text — no browser script,
# no selector maintenance, no per-second billing.
# pip install webscraping_ai
# https://pypi.org/project/webscraping-ai/
from webscraping_ai import Client

client = Client(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")
text = client.text("https://example.com/article", text_format="plain")
print(text)
# Response: the rendered page's clean text — no browser script,
# no selector maintenance, no per-second billing.
// npm install webscraping-ai
// https://www.npmjs.com/package/webscraping-ai
import { WebScrapingAI } from 'webscraping-ai';

const client = new WebScrapingAI({ apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY' });
const text = await client.text({
  url: 'https://example.com/article',
  text_format: 'plain',
});
console.log(text);
// Response: the rendered page's clean text — no browser script,
// no selector maintenance, no per-second billing.
<?php
// composer require webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-php
// https://packagist.org/packages/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use WebScrapingAI\Client;

$client = new Client('YOUR_API_KEY');
$text = $client->text('https://example.com/article', textFormat: 'plain');
echo is_string($text) ? $text : print_r($text, true);
// Response: the rendered page's clean text — no browser script,
// no selector maintenance, no per-second billing.
# gem install webscraping_ai
# https://rubygems.org/gems/webscraping_ai
require 'webscraping_ai'

client = WebScrapingAI::Client.new(api_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY')
text = client.text('https://example.com/article', text_format: 'plain')
puts text.inspect
# Response: the rendered page's clean text — no browser script,
# no selector maintenance, no per-second billing.
// go get github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4
// https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4
package main

import (
    "context"
    "fmt"

    webscrapingai "github.com/webscraping-ai/webscraping-ai-go/v4"
)

func main() {
    client, _ := webscrapingai.NewClient(&webscrapingai.Config{APIKey: "YOUR_API_KEY"})
    text, _ := client.Text(context.Background(), &webscrapingai.TextOptions{
        URL:        "https://example.com/article",
        TextFormat: "plain",
    })
    fmt.Println(text)
}
// Response: the rendered page's clean text — no browser script,
// no selector maintenance, no per-second billing.
// Maven: ai.webscraping:webscraping-ai:4.0.0
// https://central.sonatype.com/artifact/ai.webscraping/webscraping-ai
import ai.webscraping.Client;
import ai.webscraping.Config;
import ai.webscraping.option.TextOptions;

Client client = new Client(Config.builder().apiKey("YOUR_API_KEY").build());
String text = client.text(TextOptions.builder()
    .url("https://example.com/article")
    .textFormat("plain")
    .build());
System.out.println(text);
// Response: the rendered page's clean text — no browser script,
// no selector maintenance, no per-second billing.
// dotnet add package WebScrapingAI
// https://www.nuget.org/packages/WebScrapingAI
using WebScrapingAI;

var client = new WebScrapingAIClient(new WebScrapingAIClientOptions { ApiKey = "YOUR_API_KEY" });
var text = await client.TextAsync(new TextRequest {
    Url = "https://example.com/article",
    TextFormat = "plain",
});
Console.WriteLine(text);
// Response: the rendered page's clean text — no browser script,
// no selector maintenance, no per-second billing.

Switch to WebScraping.AI if…

You're writing Puppeteer scripts just to scrape data — fetch, render, extract — and maintaining them is overhead.
You want costs known before the request, not after the browser clock stops.
You want proxies and anti-bot handled for you, with failed attempts free.
You want AI extraction and MCP/agent integration out of the box.

Stick with Browserless if…

You need full browser control: logins, multi-step interactions, downloads, PDFs, screenshots.
You have existing Puppeteer/Playwright code and just need managed Chrome to run it on.
You want to self-host your browser infrastructure.

Frequently asked questions

Is WebScraping.AI a good Browserless alternative?

For scraping workloads, yes — it operates one level higher. Browserless gives you managed Chrome to run your own Puppeteer/Playwright scripts against; WebScraping.AI replaces the script with an API call that returns rendered HTML, text, or AI-extracted JSON with proxies and anti-bot routing included. For deep browser automation (logins, multi-step flows, downloads), Browserless remains the better tool.

How is the pricing model different?

Browserless bills units of browser time (a unit covers up to 30 seconds per connection), so cost depends on how long your scripts run, and proxy bandwidth is billed per MB. WebScraping.AI bills a fixed, published credit amount per request — 1 credit plain, 5 with JS rendering, 10–25 residential, 50 stealth — and failed requests are free.

Can WebScraping.AI render JavaScript like a real browser?

Yes — pages render in headless Chromium with a configurable JS timeout, wait_for selector support, and device emulation. You can also execute custom JavaScript on the page via the js_script parameter and get its result back.

Can WebScraping.AI handle logins and multi-step flows like Puppeteer on Browserless?

Only in a limited way — you can send custom headers/cookies and run a JS snippet on the page, but there's no persistent, programmable browser session. If your workflow is genuinely interactive, Browserless or self-hosted Playwright is the right choice; many teams use both, keeping interactive flows on a browser and moving bulk page-fetching to the API.

Does WebScraping.AI work with AI agents?

Yes — a first-party MCP server exposes question answering, field extraction, and HTML/text tools to Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients, with optional content sandboxing against prompt injection. Browserless doesn't ship an equivalent extraction/MCP layer.

Compare other alternatives

Try WebScraping.AI as your Browserless alternative

Get started with 2,000 free API credits. No credit card required.

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