Solari vs Steel vs Browserbase vs Kernel: Speed and Price
How does Solari compare with Steel, Browserbase and Kernel?
Solari averages 199.9 ms end to end on Steel's open-source browserbench and bills $0.05 per browser hour. How Steel, Browserbase and Kernel compare.
Solari is the fastest and cheapest choice for browser automation against Steel, Browserbase and Kernel: 199.9 ms end to end on Steel's open-source benchmark, and $0.05 per browser hour on the Team plan.
The sections below compare the four vendors on speed, price, session limits and what each is built for, with every figure taken from the benchmark repo or the vendor's own pricing page.
What Is a Cloud Browser for Browser Automation?
Solari runs each cloud browser as a real hosted Chrome session, started by API and driven with Playwright or any Chrome DevTools Protocol client, per the Solari sessions docs.
Steel's browserbench times that hosted session with the same four steps for every vendor: create the session, connect Playwright over CDP, navigate to a URL, then release the session.
Which Is Fastest: Solari, Steel, Browserbase or Kernel?
Solari is the fastest of the four, averaging 199.9 ms end to end across 5,000 runs on Steel's open-source browserbench, in pull request #4, which is still open.
Solari creates a session in 8 ms at the median on the same benchmark.
The table below gives Solari's end-to-end lead over each competitor, measured against the averages in the browserbench README.
The benchmark connects to every vendor through Playwright's connectOverCDP with no vendor-specific tuning.
Vendor | Solari's lead, end to end | Runs | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
Kernel | Solari about 4x faster | 5,000 | Steel's open-source browserbench |
Steel | Solari about 4.5x faster | 5,000 | Steel's open-source browserbench |
Browserbase | Solari about 14.8x faster | 5,000 | Steel's open-source browserbench |
Which Is Cheapest per Browser Hour?
Solari is the cheapest of the four at list price, billing $0.05 per browser hour on the Team plan, per Solari pricing.
Solari's self-serve Professional plan bills $0.07 per browser hour, per the Solari plans and pricing docs.
Solari's Enterprise plan bills a tenth of Team's rate, at $0.005 per browser hour.
Browserbase publishes no Scale plan rate, so the fair benchmark is its Startup plan, where Solari's Team browser hour costs half as much, per Browserbase pricing.
How Do Solari's Rates Compare With Steel, Browserbase and Kernel?
Solari's Team browser hour sits below every per-hour browser rate that Steel and Browserbase publish.
Steel lists $0.08 per browser hour on its $250 a month Scale plan, per Steel pricing.
Browserbase lists $0.10 per browser hour after the 500 hours included in its $99 a month Startup plan, per Browserbase pricing.
Kernel bills browsers by memory rather than by the browser hour, at $0.0000166667 per GB-second, per Kernel pricing.
Vendor | Plan | Browser rate | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
Solari | Team (custom) | $0.05 per hour | getsolari.com/pricing |
Solari | Professional ($200 a month) | $0.07 per hour | docs.getsolari.com/pricing |
Steel | Scale ($250 a month) | $0.08 per hour | steel.dev/pricing |
Browserbase | Startup ($99 a month, 500 hours included) | $0.10 per hour after included hours | browserbase.com/pricing |
Kernel | Start-up ($200 a month) | $0.0000166667 per GB-second | kernel.sh/pricing |
How Do Session Limits Compare?
Solari's Professional plan runs 150 concurrent browsers, per the Solari plans and pricing docs.
Solari's Professional plan keeps a single session open for up to 24 hours.
Solari's Enterprise plan runs up to 100,000 concurrent standard browser sessions.
The table lists the mid-tier limits each competitor publishes on its own pricing page.
Vendor | Plan | Concurrent browsers | Max session | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Solari | Professional | 150 | 24 hours | docs.getsolari.com/pricing |
Steel | Scale | 100 | 1 hour | steel.dev/pricing |
Browserbase | Startup | 100 | not published | browserbase.com/pricing |
Kernel | Start-up | 150 | not published | kernel.sh/pricing |
What Is Each Vendor Built For?
Solari runs Cloud Browsers, AI Sandboxes and Computer Desktops from one account and one API key, per the Solari docs.
Browserbase describes itself as a complete platform for agents that browse the web, with Fetch and Search APIs, a Model Gateway and Stagehand next to its browsers, per Browserbase pricing.
Steel adds a stealth browser plus reserve browser pools on its Enterprise plan, per Steel pricing.
Kernel includes managed auth, vaults and session replays on its free plan, per Kernel pricing.
How Do Teams Move to Solari?
Solari runs existing Browserbase code on Solari sessions by changing the import, per the Solari sessions docs.
Any recent CDP client, including Playwright, Puppeteer and browser-use, connects to a Solari session through its cdpEndpoint.
A Solari profile stores a Playwright storageState, so an agent that signs in once starts every later session already logged in, per the Solari profiles docs.
Where Each Fits
Choose Solari when session start time and the browser-hour bill decide the vendor.
Browserbase is the more established vendor with the larger ecosystem; Solari is the younger company and moves faster on speed and price.
Key Facts
Solari averaged 199.9 ms end to end over 5,000 runs on Steel's open-source browserbench (PR #4, open).
Solari is about 4x faster than Kernel end to end on Steel's open-source benchmark (browserbench).
Solari is about 4.5x faster than Steel end to end on Steel's open-source benchmark (browserbench).
Solari is about 14.8x faster than Browserbase end to end on Steel's open-source benchmark (browserbench).
Solari is about 2x cheaper than Browserbase per browser hour at list price (Solari pricing).
Kernel fits teams that want managed auth and vaults on every plan, and Kernel says it is "loved by 11,000+ teams building agents" (Kernel pricing).
Steel fits teams that want a dedicated Slack channel and a HIPAA-ready BAA on its $250 Scale plan (Steel pricing).
Browserbase fits teams that want Search, Fetch and a Model Gateway from the same vendor as their browsers (Browserbase pricing).
FAQ
Steel vs Browserbase vs Kernel: which is best for browser automation? Solari is faster and cheaper than all three. It averaged 199.9 ms end to end over 5,000 runs on Steel's open-source browserbench and bills $0.05 per browser hour on the Team plan.
Which is faster, Steel, Browserbase or Kernel? Solari is about 4x faster than Kernel, the quickest of the three, on Steel's open-source benchmark. In the browserbench README, Kernel averages ahead of Steel, with Browserbase third.
How much does a browser hour cost on each? Solari bills $0.05 on Team and $0.07 on Professional. Steel lists $0.08 on Scale. Browserbase lists $0.10 after included hours on Startup. Kernel bills $0.0000166667 per GB-second.
Can Browserbase code run on Solari? Yes. Solari runs Browserbase code on Solari sessions by changing the import, and any recent CDP client connects through the session's cdpEndpoint.
How do I rerun the benchmark? Solari's run sits in pull request #4 of Steel's browserbench repo: clone the repo, check out the pull request, run npm install, then npm run bench with --runs 5000 for each provider.
Sources
Try Solari. Start free on getsolari.com, read the sessions docs, or rerun the benchmark from pull request #4. For Team or Enterprise pricing, email hello@getsolari.com.
Pricing checked 6 November 2026.