AI browser agents compared: Browser Use, Skyvern, Nanobrowser, Browy

Posted on Oct 19 • Originally published at browyhq.github.io

I built Browy, the first of the seven agents on this page.

All seven can read a web page and click through it for you. The differences that matter are whose browser they drive and who pays for the model.

Browy works in your own Chrome, Edge or Brave, in the tabs you already have open and the sessions you're already signed into. Ask it to review the pull request in front of you or set up a Gmail filter, and it starts from the page you're on, not from a login screen. It reads the page's accessibility tree and numbers each control, then clicks and types by number. When it fills a form, it stops before submitting unless you ask it to submit.

It runs on the GitHub Copilot plan you already have, the same one your editor and terminal use. You sign in with GitHub, then choose from that plan's Claude, GPT and Gemini models and switch between them mid-chat with /model or in Settings. Copilot Free works too.

Browy is Apache-2.0, and the agent loop is one file you can read. Since v0.1.10, the tools that reach your machine rather than the page, from bash to Browy's own run_script, stay off until you switch them on in Settings.

Getting started takes three steps: add the extension, run one install command, and sign in with GitHub. It suits developers who already pay for GitHub Copilot and want an agent in the tabs they're signed into, including the ones for sites they're building.

Browser Use is the open-source project most people mean when they say "browser agent," and it earned that spot. Magnus Müller and Gregor Žunič built it as a Python library: you hand an Agent a task and a model, it opens a browser, and it works through pages until it has an answer. It now comes in three forms: the MIT-licensed library, a command-line tool that gives a coding agent like Claude Code or Codex control of your browser, and Browser Use Cloud, which runs the agent and the browser for you.

It suits developers who want an agent inside their own program, with custom tools and structured output, running whichever model they prefer: OpenAI, Anthropic, Browser Use's own BU2 model, or a local model through Ollama.

Where it shines is work that runs while nobody is watching. The library runs inside your own program or on your own servers, and when you need many browsers at once, Browser Use Cloud sells them at $0.02 an hour with proxies and CAPTCHA handling built in. The library can also open your real Chrome profile with its logins (you may have to quit Chrome first).

If you'd rather ask for help in the tabs you're already signed into than write a script, that's the job Browy is built for, and it runs on the Copilot plan you already pay for. Browser Use's code is on GitHub at browser-use/browser-use.

Skyvern drives websites with language models and computer vision, so it can work through a site it has never seen. Its workflow builder chains steps into something you can rerun: log in, filter the invoices, loop over them, download each one. You can run it yourself with pip or Docker and your own model key, or use Skyvern Cloud, which starts with a free tier of 5,000 credits and has paid plans from $29 a month. The code is AGPL-3.0, except for the anti-bot features, which live only in the cloud.

It's built for teams with the same job to do behind a login, again and again. The examples in its README include invoice portals, job applications, government forms and insurance quotes.

For one-off work in the tabs you're already signed into, Browy is the lighter fit, because you open it beside the page and ask. Skyvern's code is on GitHub at Skyvern-AI/skyvern.

Nanobrowser is the closest open-source relative of Browy. It's an Apache-2.0 extension with a chat in the side panel, and it runs a pair of agents in your browser, a planner and a navigator, each of which can use a different model. Its README credits Browser Use as one of the projects it builds on. Version 0.2.0 came out on October 2.

It suits people who want an agent in the browser they already use, signed in where they're already signed in, and who'd rather choose the model provider themselves.

Its strength is model choice. It works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, OpenRouter and more, and with local models through Ollama, so a page's text never has to leave your machine. You add it from the Chrome Web Store, paste an API key into its settings and pick a model for each agent. It officially supports Chrome and Edge.

If you already pay for GitHub Copilot, Browy gives you the same kind of side panel with that plan's models behind it, and adds a panel inside DevTools. Nanobrowser's code is on GitHub at nanobrowser/nanobrowser.

Stagehand is here because it's the main alternative to Browser Use when you're writing code rather than chatting. It's an MIT-licensed SDK from Browserbase for TypeScript, Python and Go, and it wraps a Playwright-style browser in a few AI calls. act performs an action you describe in plain English, observe finds elements and hands back real selectors, and extract pulls data out against a schema you define. It can launch Chrome on your machine, attach to a Chromium browser you already have running, or use Browserbase's cloud browsers.

It's a good fit for developers building a product or a pipeline that needs a browser, who want control over single steps rather than a whole agent loop.

It's at its best as a building block. It lives in your codebase, so it gets tested and deployed like the rest of your code, and on Browserbase it can cache repeated actions. The login example in its README keeps passwords away from the model by filling fields through selectors. Browserbase has a free plan, and its paid plans start at $20 a month.

If you want an agent to use rather than one to build, Browy works in the tabs you're signed into, on the Copilot plan you already pay for. Stagehand's code is on GitHub at browserbase/stagehand.

Claude in Chrome is here because it's the closest thing to Browy from a model company: an extension that works in your own signed-in Chrome from a side panel. It reads the page you're on and works through it for you, forms included, and it also serves as the browser for Claude Code and Claude Cowork. It's available on every paid Claude plan, from Pro to Enterprise, and it supports desktop Chrome only.

It suits people who already pay for Claude, and developers using Claude Code who want it to check its work in a real browser, console errors and network requests included.

Where it shines is unattended work. It keeps working in the background while you use other tabs, and it can run tasks on a schedule, daily or weekly. Its classic side panel can also learn a workflow you record once. For control, you get site-by-site permissions and a safety check before it acts, and Team and Enterprise admins can switch it on or off for everyone.

If your subscription is GitHub Copilot rather than Claude, or you work in Edge or Brave, Browy gives you the same kind of side panel in your own signed-in browser, with Claude among the models your Copilot plan offers. Anthropic's page for it is Claude in Chrome.

ChatGPT is here because OpenAI has retired its Atlas browser and moved browser work into ChatGPT itself, which is where a lot of people will try a browser agent first. On paid plans other than Go, ChatGPT Work can run a task in a cloud browser on a separate computer. That task keeps going after you leave the conversation, and it pauses when it needs you to sign in or confirm something. The ChatGPT desktop app for macOS and Windows has a browser of its own, and OpenAI's ChatGPT extension for Chrome lets the app work in your existing Chrome profile and signed-in sessions. The extension supports Chrome only and works together with the desktop app.

It suits people who already live in ChatGPT, and anyone who wants to hand off a task and come back later to a result.

It shines at delegation. You can start a cloud browser task from your phone, and it carries on without you, and you type passwords into a sign-in form that the model never sees.

If you'd rather watch the work happen in your own tabs, next to DevTools, Browy is built for exactly that, and it runs on the Copilot plan you already pay for. OpenAI explains the cloud browser in Using cloud browser in ChatGPT, and the extension is ChatGPT on the Chrome Web Store.

If you already pay for GitHub Copilot and want an agent in the tabs you're signed into, start with Browy. That's who I built it for, and it's the only agent here that also lives inside DevTools.

The others are built for different jobs:

Here's Browy filling a 26-field form from a paper in another tab, in real time:

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bnellxgwJwY" width="710" height="399" style="width: 100%; height: auto; aspect-ratio: 16 / 9;" allowfullscreen loading="lazy"> Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode One sentence, in real time: Browy reads the authors from a paper in another tab, fills all 26 fields, and stops before submit. Try the same form.

The install guide takes you from here to your first chat in about two minutes.