Solari vs Browserbase: Speed, Price and Fit

Solari is the faster of the two: on Steel's open-source benchmark, a Solari session averaged 199.9 ms end to end across 5,000 runs, about 14.8x faster than Browserbase. Solari also puts browsers, sandboxes and desktops on one account.

Solari's browser-hour rate is lower on every paid self-serve tier, and Solari's session create takes 8 ms on that benchmark. Browserbase builds a wider web layer around its browsers, with search, fetch, a model gateway and agent identity. Pick on what your agent spends its time doing: starting sessions and running code, or searching and fetching around a browser.

Key Takeaways

• Choose Solari when session startup shows up in your agent's wall clock, when the browser hour is the biggest line on the bill, or when the same agent also needs a sandbox for code or a desktop for computer use.

• Choose Browserbase when you want search, fetch, a model gateway and agent identity from the vendor that runs your browsers, or when captcha solving and proxy data bundled into the plan matter more than the hourly rate.

Reasons to Consider an Alternative to Browserbase

Four events usually start the search.

• The invoice. Browserbase's pricing page says usage past the included hours bills at $0.12 per browser hour on Developer and $0.10 on Startup. A cost review finds that line growing.

• Startup time. An agent that opens a fresh session per task pays the session start on every task, thousands of times a day.

• A second surface. The agent now has to run the code it wrote, or operate a full desktop. That means a second vendor and a second bill.

• A spend ceiling. Browserbase's pricing page says "Every plan scales past its included usage, so no caps or throttling as you build, billed at your plan's rate". Some teams want the bill to stop at a set balance instead.

Solari vs Browserbase at a Glance

1. Solari

Core Capabilities

Solari's Cloud Browsers start by API, and you drive them over CDP or Playwright. Profiles save your login, cookies and site data, so an agent does not sign in again on every run. Sessions can be recorded and replayed. AI Sandboxes give agent code a machine with no screen: run commands, execute code that keeps its state, watch files, and snapshot and fork. Computer Desktops add a graphical screen for computer-use models.

Pricing

Solari's plans are Free at $0, Starter at $20 a month, Professional at $200 a month, and Team and Enterprise on custom terms. On Starter and Professional, the plan fee comes back as the same amount in monthly credits. Solari bills browsers at $0.07 per hour on Professional and $0.05 per hour on Team, as the pricing page shows.

Where It Shines

Session speed, measured in the open on a peer's benchmark. One account and one bill for browsers, sandboxes and desktops. A hard spend ceiling: Solari stops billing at your balance, so there is no end-of-month overage charge.

Who It's Best For

Platform engineers running many short browser sessions, and teams whose agents both browse and run code.

2. Browserbase

Core Capabilities

Browserbase calls itself "the complete platform to build and deploy agents that browse and interact with the web like humans" on its pricing page. That page lists Browsers, Fetch and Search APIs, Agent Identity, Runtime (Browserbase Functions) and a Model Gateway. Browserbase also maintains the Stagehand framework.

Pricing

Browserbase's pricing page lists Free at $0, Developer at $20 a month, Startup at $99 a month and Scale on a custom contract.

Where It Shines

Breadth around the browser: search and fetch calls, models billed through the same key, and Verified Agents on Scale. Bundled extras: Browserbase includes captcha solving from Developer, with 1 GB of proxies on Developer and 5 GB on Startup, per its pricing page. Longer data retention at the low end.

Where It Falls Short

Browserbase focuses on browsers: its pricing page lists no code sandbox or desktop. On Steel's open-source benchmark, Solari runs about 14.8x faster than Browserbase end to end.

Who It's Best For

Teams building browse-and-extract agents that want one vendor for the browser, the search layer and the model bill.

Speed: Which Is Faster?

Solari. On Steel's open-source benchmark, Solari averaged 199.9 ms end to end over 5,000 runs, about 14.8x faster than Browserbase. The pull request that adds Solari to the benchmark (#4) is open.

The benchmark times four steps per session. Solari's medians:

create    █                      8 ms
connect   ███                   24 ms
goto      ████████████████████ 155 ms
release   █                      2 ms

create    █                      8 ms
connect   ███                   24 ms
goto      ████████████████████ 155 ms
release   █                      2 ms

create    █                      8 ms
connect   ███                   24 ms
goto      ████████████████████ 155 ms
release   █                      2 ms

Almost all of the run is the page load. Session create and release are single-digit milliseconds, and that is the part a fleet repeats on every task.

Solari's run went from a single AWS region, and the multiples compare against the averages in the benchmark's README. The benchmark measures startup plus one page load, the step every agent task begins with. It is open source, so any team can rerun every provider from one machine and see the gap for itself.

Price: Which Costs Less?

Solari's browser hour is lower at every matching paid tier: $0.10 on Starter against the $0.12 Developer overage rate on Browserbase's pricing page, and $0.07 on Professional against Browserbase's $0.10 Startup overage rate on the same page. The table pairs the closest plans.

The rows show the trade. Browserbase bundles included hours and captcha solving into its plan fee, per its pricing page. Solari's hourly rate is lower once usage runs past what a plan includes, Solari's bill stops at your balance instead of running into overage, and Solari runs 150 concurrent browsers on Professional.

What Each Is Built For

Browserbase is built to be the whole web layer for a browsing agent. Solari is built to be the environment an agent runs in, across three surfaces.

Solari's sandboxes default to a microVM of your own, the "dedicated" isolation mode in the sandbox docs, and every browser session can be recorded and replayed for debugging. For the wider category, read the Solari launch post. A Browserbase alternatives list with Steel, Kernel and Hyperbrowser follows.

Conclusion

Choose Solari over Browserbase when your agents open many short sessions and startup time adds up. Choose Solari when usage runs past included hours and the hourly rate decides the bill, or when the same agent needs a sandbox or a desktop next to the browser. Stay with Browserbase when your agents rely on its search, fetch or model gateway, or when your workload fits inside its included hours and bundled captcha solving. Browserbase is the more established vendor with the larger ecosystem; Solari is the younger company and moves faster on speed and price. If session speed or the browser-hour bill is what you want to fix, rerun the benchmark yourself, then open your first session on Solari's free plan with the profiles guide and see how fast your own agents run on Solari.

FAQ QUESTIONS:

1. What is the best Browserbase alternative?

2. Is Solari cheaper than Browserbase?

3. Does Solari have search and fetch APIs like Browserbase?