Anchor Browser Review — Joute's Take

The gist in 20 seconds

Isolated cloud browser designed for AI agents that browse the web
Per-session isolation with traffic and cookie encryption
Simple API compatible with Playwright and Puppeteer
Pricing: pay as you go per session usage

Verdict: Cloud browser infrastructure for AI agents with reinforced isolation. Niche but relevant when security comes first.

What is Anchor Browser

Anchor Browser is a cloud browser infrastructure designed specifically for AI agents. The idea: give your agents an isolated, encrypted browsing session that leaves no traces between runs.

Where Browserbase or Hyperbrowser target performance and scale, Anchor focuses on session security and isolation between agent runs.

Strengths

Session isolation

Each session is a fresh, isolated environment. No cookies, no session data shared between agent runs — crucial for multi-tenant or sensitive workflows.

Playwright and Puppeteer compatible

No need to rewrite your code. Anchor integrates as a standard remote browser endpoint. Migration from existing scraping in a few lines.

Explicit security focus

For use cases with sensitive credentials (logging into enterprise tools, accessing admin interfaces), Anchor's reinforced isolation is a genuine argument.

Limits

Less mature than the competition

Browserbase and Hyperbrowser have a larger community, better documentation, and more native integrations with agent frameworks. Anchor is newer and more niche.

Pay-as-you-go pricing hard to forecast

The pay-as-you-go model makes budget planning complex for workflows with variable volume.

Pricing

Pay as you go: billed per minute of browser session
No publicly announced fixed monthly plan, contact for volume pricing

Alternatives

Browserbase for the most mature and best-integrated solution
Hyperbrowser for value for money
Steel Browser for a self-hostable open source option

Verdict

Anchor Browser targets a specific profile: teams running AI agents on sensitive interfaces who need session isolation guarantees that other providers don't document as clearly. For everything else, Browserbase remains the default choice.

FAQ

Does Anchor Browser support JavaScript on the page?

Yes. It's a full Chromium. Anything your agent can do in a real browser, it can do in Anchor.

How do you handle authentication in Anchor sessions?

Via session cookies or credentials injected at session start. Isolation ensures they don't persist between sessions.

Anchor Browser vs Browserbase: what's the difference?

Anchor focuses on security and isolation. Browserbase focuses on scale and integrations. For high-volume workflows, Browserbase. For sensitive use cases, Anchor.