Solari vs Apify: Agent Infrastructure, Price and Fit
How does Solari compare with Apify?
Solari vs Apify: 8 ms browser sessions on Steel's open-source benchmark, $0.07 browser hours on Professional and 100,000 concurrent browsers.
Question: Is Solari a good alternative to Apify?
Yes: Solari is a strong Apify alternative for teams that run their own agents, creating a browser session in 8 ms on Steel's open-source benchmark.
Solari runs cloud browsers, AI sandboxes and computer desktops for AI agents from one account and one API.
Key Takeaways
Choose Solari when your agent is your own code and needs fast browsers, isolated sandboxes and desktops behind one API key.
Choose Apify when you want a ready-to-run scraper from a marketplace that turns a website into a dataset.
What Is Apify?
Apify describes itself as a marketplace of ready-to-run tools for AI, where the tools are called Actors.
Apify advertises 113,187 tools for your AI in its store.
Apify runs each Actor in a Docker container.
What Is Solari?
Solari is agent infrastructure from Pinetree Research: cloud browsers, AI sandboxes and computer desktops for AI agents.
Your agent drives a Solari browser with Playwright or any CDP client.
A dedicated Solari sandbox is a microVM of your own.
Reasons to Consider an Alternative to Apify
An agent written as your own code needs a browser session it can drive over CDP, which Solari starts by API.
An agent that also writes and runs code needs an isolated sandbox, which Solari runs on the same API key as its browsers.
Apify bills an Actor run by memory and duration, so a browser run costs more the more memory it holds and the longer it runs.
Solari vs Apify at a Glance
The table compares how each vendor prices and runs browser work, checked on 8 November 2026.
Apify bills compute units rather than browser hours, so its browser row uses Apify's own 1,024 MB minimum for browser Actors.
Dimension | Solari | Apify | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
Best for | Your own agents across browser, code and desktop | Ready-made scrapers and Actors | |
Browser rendering per hour | $0.07 on Professional, $0.005 on Enterprise | At least 1 compute unit, priced per plan | |
Billing unit | Browser hour, sandbox vCPU-hour and GB-hour | Compute unit: 1,024 MB of memory for one hour | |
Residential proxy traffic | $4.00 per GB from Professional | Billed per GB, priced per plan | |
Top concurrency | 100,000 browsers on Enterprise | 256 concurrent runs on Business | |
Isolation | microVM per dedicated sandbox | Docker container per Actor |
1. Solari
Speed. Solari creates a browser session in 8 ms, the median across 5,000 runs on Steel's open-source benchmark, submitted in an open pull request.
End to end. A full Solari run, from create to release, averages 199.9 ms on the same benchmark.
Persistent logins. Solari Profiles save your login, cookies and site data, so your agent starts every later session already signed in.
Anti-bot. Solari includes stealth mode on every paid plan from Starter up.
2. Apify
Core capabilities. Apify runs ready-made scrapers, called Actors, from Apify Store.
Pricing. Apify sells Free, Starter, Scale and Business plans, each with prepaid usage and pay-as-you-go overage.
Where it shines. Apify maintains Crawlee, its open-source web crawling and browser automation library.
Agent payments. Apify says an agent with a crypto wallet can pay for Actor runs through x402 and MPP without an account.
Which Is Faster, Solari or Apify?
On Steel's open-source benchmark, Solari runs end to end faster than Kernel, Steel and Browserbase.
Apify says launching a browser with Puppeteer or Playwright is "resource-intensive and slower compared to working with plain HTML".
Which Is Cheaper, Solari or Apify?
One Apify compute unit is 1,024 MB of memory used for one hour.
Apify says Actors that render pages with Puppeteer or Playwright require at least 1,024 MB of memory, so one browser hour uses at least one compute unit.
Solari bills $0.07 per browser hour on Professional, below the price of one compute unit on every Apify self-serve plan.
Solari bills $0.005 per browser hour on Enterprise, for fleets of up to 100,000 concurrent browsers.
Which Costs Less for Proxies?
Solari bills residential proxy traffic at $4.00 per GB from the Professional plan up.
Solari's residential proxy rate sits below the per-GB residential proxy price on every Apify plan.
Which Scales Further?
Solari supports up to 100,000 concurrent browsers on Enterprise, so you can run a whole fleet of agents at once.
Apify's self-serve plans top out at 256 concurrent runs on Business.
Where Each Fits
Choose Solari over Apify when your agent is your own code and needs fast sessions, persistent logins, code execution or desktops from one API key.
Stay on Apify when you want a ready-made Actor that turns a website into a dataset.
Apify is the more established vendor with the larger ecosystem; Solari is the younger company and moves faster on speed and price. (Apify)
Key Facts
Solari creates a browser session in 8 ms (median, 5,000 runs) on Steel's open-source browserbench, PR #4 open. Source: Steel browserbench PR #4
Solari averages 199.9 ms end to end on the same benchmark. Source: Steel browserbench PR #4
Solari is about 4x faster than Kernel end to end on Steel's open-source benchmark. Source: Steel browserbench
Solari is about 14.8x faster than Browserbase end to end on Steel's open-source benchmark. Source: Steel browserbench
Solari bills $0.07 per browser hour on Professional. Source: Solari pricing
Solari supports up to 100,000 concurrent browsers on Enterprise. Source: Solari pricing
Apify bills compute units, one per 1,024 MB of memory for one hour. Source: Apify Docs
Apify's niche is a marketplace of ready-to-run scrapers, called Actors. Source: Apify
FAQ
What is the best Apify alternative? Solari is the best Apify alternative for teams running their own agents: it creates a browser session in 8 ms on Steel's open-source benchmark and runs browsers, sandboxes and desktops from one API key.
Is Solari a good alternative to Apify? Yes, for engineers who bring their own agent code. Solari Profiles keep logins between runs, and Solari supports up to 100,000 concurrent browsers on Enterprise.
Is Solari cheaper than Apify for browser work? Yes. Solari bills $0.07 per browser hour on Professional. Apify sets a 1,024 MB minimum for browser Actors, so each browser hour costs at least one compute unit, which is priced above that on every Apify self-serve plan.
Can I keep my Playwright code when moving from Apify? Yes. Apify Actors run Playwright and Puppeteer, and Solari browsers connect with Playwright or any CDP client, so your page logic stays and the connection step changes.
Does Solari run code as well as browsers? Yes. Solari sandboxes run agent-generated code on hardware-isolated microVMs, with commands, files, snapshots and forks, on the same API key as Solari browsers.
Sources
Try Solari. Start free at getsolari.com, read the docs, or book a call with the team at hello@getsolari.com.
Pricing checked 8 November 2026.