Steel

Steel gives AI agents and automation developers a way to run browsers in the cloud without managing infrastructure. It exposes a Sessions API that spins up on-demand browser instances, handles the messy parts of web automation (bot detection, CAPTCHAs, session state), and integrates with tools you're probably already using.

It's built for teams working on browser automation for AI: agents that book flights, scrape data at scale, fill forms, or interact with auth-walled sites. It also fits RPA pipelines, sales automation, QA testing, and foundational model training that requires real web data.

Key capabilities:

• Sessions API spins up browser sessions on demand, with average start times under one second
• Built-in CAPTCHA solving keeps automations running without manual intervention
• Proxy and fingerprint controls reduce the chance of being flagged as a bot
• Context management lets you save and reuse cookies and local storage across sessions, so agents can pick up mid-flow
• Long sessions run up to 24 hours per session
• Session Viewer lets you watch or replay live and recorded sessions for debugging
• Auto sign-in gives agents secure access to sites behind authentication
• One-line migration from local Puppeteer, Playwright, or Selenium to cloud sessions

Steel works with Python, Node.js, Puppeteer, Playwright, and Selenium. It has cookbook examples for pairing with Browser Use, OpenAI's Computer Use, and Claude's Computer Use, making it a practical backend for agent frameworks that need real browser access.

The project is open source. You can self-host it with Docker for local development or run it fully on your own infrastructure. The hosted cloud option is available for teams that don't want to manage the stack themselves, with a free tier included.