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browser-use/browser-use

🌐 Make websites accessible for AI agents. Automate tasks online with ease.

Browser Use is the most popular open-source library for letting AI agents control real browsers, built on top of Playwright and used with Claude, Gemini, or its own ChatBrowserUse model. If you want an agent that fills forms, clicks buttons, and extracts data from any website, start here.

94,837 stars10,692 forksPythonUpdated May 2026
✅ Reviewed by My AI Guide, vetted for vibe builders

Our Review

Browser Use is the most popular open-source AI browser agent library on GitHub -- 94,000 stars and 10,700 forks as of May 2026. Built in Python on top of Playwright and released under the MIT license by the browser-use team, it gives any LLM the ability to drive a real Chromium browser, fill forms, click links, and extract data from any website.

What Browser Use does:

  • Multi-LLM agent works out of the box with Claude, Gemini, OpenAI, and its own ChatBrowserUse model with a one-line LLM swap.
  • Playwright-based execution real browser, real DOM, handles JavaScript-heavy sites and SPAs that fail simple HTTP scrapers.
  • Custom tools API extend the agent with project-specific actions like database lookups, API calls, or file operations.
  • Stealth mode via cloud optional Browser Use Cloud adds proxy rotation, captcha solving, and bot-detection bypass for sites that block automation.
  • Async-first design built around Python asyncio, runs multiple agents in parallel without thread management overhead.
  • uv quickstart one-line install with uv add browser-use, agents up and running in under five minutes.
  • Open-source benchmark BU Bench V1 ships 100 real-world browser tasks for measuring LLM-vs-browser-agent accuracy.

Browser Use ecosystem:

  • Browser Use Cloud fully managed hosted version with persistent filesystem, memory, and 1,000+ integrations (Gmail, Slack, Notion).
  • browser-use/benchmark companion repo with 100 real-world browser tasks for LLM evaluation.
  • Agents.md docs AI-coding-agent-ready documentation at docs.browser-use.com/llms-full.txt for Cursor and Claude Code.
  • Discord community active user community and direct access to the maintainer team.

Getting started:

Install with uv init && uv add browser-use && uv sync, then uvx browser-use install to get Chromium. Set an LLM API key in .env (Anthropic, Google, or Browser Use). Write a 10-line script: Agent(task="...", llm=ChatBrowserUse()).run(). Full docs at docs.browser-use.com.

Limitations:

Requires Python 3.11+ and an LLM API key with a budget, so this is not a free tool unless you self-host on a free-tier model. The open-source agent performs worse than the cloud agent on complex tasks per the BU Bench V1 benchmark. Stealth, proxy rotation, and captcha solving sit behind the paid cloud tier, and self-hosted runs may be blocked by sites with strong bot detection. Cloud integrations like Gmail and Slack are cloud-only, not in the open-source library.

Our Verdict

Browser Use in 2026 is the default open-source library for building AI agents that drive real browsers. 94,000 GitHub stars, 10,700 forks, weekly releases, MIT license, and integrations with every major LLM provider.

For Vibe Builders, the open-source library gets you from "I want an agent that scrapes flight prices" to a running script in ten lines of Python. The cloud version handles harder problems (proxy rotation, captcha, Gmail and Slack integrations) without writing more code.

For Developers, Browser Use is the cleanest Python API for browser-agent work. The async-first design, custom-tools API, and Playwright underneath give you the building blocks for production agents. The open-source BU Bench benchmark lets you measure changes objectively.

Skip Browser Use if you only need basic HTTP scraping -- Firecrawl is faster and cheaper for that job. Skip if Python is not in your stack. Skip if your target sites have aggressive bot detection and you cannot pay for the cloud tier with stealth and rotation. For no-code workflows that connect browsers to other apps, Zapier with browser nodes covers a different niche.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Browser Use?

Browser Use is an open-source Python library for building AI agents that control real browsers. Built on top of Playwright and released under the MIT license, it works with any major LLM (Claude, Gemini, OpenAI, or the team's own ChatBrowserUse model). As of May 2026 it has 94,000 GitHub stars and is the most popular open-source browser-agent library.

Is Browser Use free?

The open-source library is fully free under the MIT license. You will still need an LLM API key with a budget, since Browser Use calls Claude, Gemini, OpenAI, or its own ChatBrowserUse model to decide what to click and type. Browser Use Cloud is a paid hosted version with stealth, captcha solving, and 1,000+ integrations.

Browser Use vs Firecrawl -- which should I choose?

Choose Browser Use when you need an agent that fills forms, clicks buttons, and navigates multi-step workflows like checkout flows or dashboard exports. Choose Firecrawl when you need fast, structured web data extraction or batch scraping with a simple API. Browser Use does agentic interaction, Firecrawl does data extraction from any URL at scale.

How do I install Browser Use?

Install Browser Use with uv: run uv init, then uv add browser-use, then uv sync. After that, run uvx browser-use install to fetch Chromium. Add your LLM API key to a .env file (Anthropic, Google, or Browser Use). Then write a short Python script that instantiates Agent with a task and an LLM, and call await agent.run().

Does Browser Use bypass bot detection?

The open-source library uses standard Playwright Chromium without stealth modifications, so it may be blocked by sites with strong bot detection. Browser Use Cloud adds residential proxy rotation, fingerprint randomization, and captcha solving for sites that block automation. The cloud tier is the recommended path when self-hosted runs keep getting blocked.

What is browser-use?

Browser Use is the most popular open-source library for letting AI agents control real browsers, built on top of Playwright and used with Claude, Gemini, or its own ChatBrowserUse model. If you want an agent that fills forms, clicks buttons, and extracts data from any website, start here.

What license does browser-use use?

browser-use uses the MIT license.

What are alternatives to browser-use?

Explore related tools and alternatives on My AI Guide.

🔒

Open source & community-verified

MIT licensed: free to use in any project, no strings attached. 94,837 developers have starred this, meaning the community has reviewed and trusted it.

Reviewed by My AI Guide for relevance, quality, and active maintenance before listing.

Topics

ai-agentsai-toolsbrowser-automationbrowser-usellmplaywrightpython

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