Steel alternatives: 6 options compared on published price
Open-source browser API for AI agents with hosted cloud sessions. Looking for something different? These are the vendors in our data closest to Steel by product type and shared price metrics, compared on published prices checked . Prices only, not quality.
partial verification from $250/mo MCP: Not confirmed · Steel full pricing page
What to weigh about Steel first
Drawn from the Steel record on this site: its published watch-outs and the figures we could not verify.
Watch-outs
- Monthly $250 Scale fee on top of usage.
- Plan comparison table is partly ambiguous.
Could not verify
- Which plan the $5/1k /scrape rate applies to is unclear on the page.
- No MCP server confirmed on the pages checked.
Alternatives at a glance
How these were chosen: a fixed rule counts the price metrics both vendors publish plus category overlap. The order is by that score. It is not by price, popularity or commercial relationship; FetchIndex has an affiliate relationship with Firecrawl only (disclosure).
| Alternative | Category | Shared price metrics | Free tier | MCP / agent support | Verification | Head-to-head |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Browserbase alternatives to Browserbase | Browser infrastructure | Remote browser hour | Free plan: 1 browser hour, 3 concurrent browsers, 1,000 search and 1,000 fetch calls, $5 in model tokens. | Yes | full verification | Steel vs Browserbase |
| Hyperbrowser alternatives to Hyperbrowser | Browser infrastructure | Remote browser hour | 5,000 credits included with a free account (~50 browser hours or 5,000 fetched pages). | Yes | full verification | no head-to-head page |
| Bright Data alternatives to Bright Data | Proxies & unblockers | none (different product type) | Unlocker and SERP APIs: 5K requests/month free, no card (as stated on their pricing pages). Browser API page lists a 1 GB monthly free tier. | Yes | full verification | no head-to-head page |
| Oxylabs alternatives to Oxylabs | Proxies & unblockers | none (different product type) | $5 welcome credit toward any product (one-time as described), no ongoing free tier stated. | Yes | full verification | no head-to-head page |
| Scrapfly alternatives to Scrapfly | Scraping APIs | none (different product type) | 1,000 credits on signup, no card, no time limit (one-time allotment). | Yes | full verification | no head-to-head page |
| ZenRows alternatives to ZenRows | Scraping APIs | none (different product type) | 5,000 credits/month, no card, every primitive except standalone residential proxies. | Yes | partial verification | no head-to-head page |
Price comparison by use case
Remote browser hour
| Vendor | Lowest published price | Plan / rate | Monthly spend needed | Compared with Steel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steel | $0.08 per hour | Scale | $250/mo | this vendor |
| Hyperbrowser | $0.10 per hour | All plans | none | 1.2x more expensive |
| Browserbase | $0.198 per hour | Startup (included hours) | $99/mo | 2.5x more expensive |
Which alternative fits which job
- Browserbase: Cloud headless browsers for agents, with Fetch and Search APIs. Tends to fit: Agents that must click, log in and fill forms. Watch-out: Pay for browser time, not pages: slow pages cost more.
- Hyperbrowser: Cloud browsers, sandboxes, a Fetch/Search web API and agent runners on a shared credit balance. Tends to fit: Cheap browser hours and a built-in Fetch API. Watch-out: Proxy data at $10/GB bills on top of browser time.
- Bright Data: Large proxy networks plus Web Unlocker, SERP, Crawl and Browser APIs, datasets and scrapers. Tends to fit: Hard anti-bot targets at scale. Watch-out: Many products with separate pricing pages; check which one you need.
- Oxylabs: Proxy networks and Web Scraper/Search APIs on one subscription with volume tiers. Tends to fit: SERP + scraping + proxies under one subscription. Watch-out: Generic '/Scrape from $0.50' is a starting rate; target-specific rows differ. This site uses the conservative custom-domain rows.
- Scrapfly: Scraping, screenshot, extraction and cloud-browser APIs on one key and one credit pool. Tends to fit: Anti-bot-heavy scraping with transparent credit multipliers. Watch-out: Residential/Unblocker requests burn 5-25x the base credits.
- ZenRows: Fetch, extract, crawl, batch and browser primitives on one credit balance. Tends to fit: Protected sites where you want a single credit meter. Watch-out: Monthly-billed and annual-billed rates differ by about 17%; check which one you compare against.
When Steel is still the better choice
- Self-hostable browser sessions
- Agent builders who want open-source infra
Frequently asked questions
Is there a cheaper alternative to Steel?
On the published prices we have, no listed alternative is cheaper than Steel for remote browser hour. Prices only, and only where both sides publish a comparable price.
Is there a free alternative to Steel?
Alternatives with a recurring free tier in our data: Bright Data (Unlocker and SERP APIs: 5K requests/month free, no card (as stated on their pricing pages). Browser API page lists a 1 GB monthly free tier); ZenRows (5,000 credits/month, no card, every primitive except standalone residential proxies). Free-tier limits change often; check the vendor page.
Which Steel alternatives support MCP?
Steel: not confirmed. Alternatives with a documented MCP server in our data: Browserbase, Hyperbrowser, Bright Data, Oxylabs, Scrapfly, ZenRows.
Keep exploring
Use-case guides
Corrections welcome: [email protected]. Each vendor page lists the official sources used.