Agentic Index
Brave Leo AI Browsing vs Opera Neon (2026)
Both vendors last verified
Two established browser vendors shipping agents, with opposite emphases. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
Brave leads on privacy, with autonomous multi step browsing in an isolated profile with alignment checking, zero data retention and bring your own local model support, free with no account, or Leo Premium at $14.99 a month, in early access since May 2026. Opera Neon leads on capability, with cross page task execution with real time visibility and takeover, app and report building in offline cloud virtual machines and sourced research, model agnostic, with a free download and the agentic features at $19.90 a month. Privacy defaults against shipped capability.
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Brave Leo AI Browsing and Opera Neon are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 1,084 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Brave Leo AI Browsing if
- Prompt injection and data retention are your actual concerns about agentic browsing.
- Running a local model through bring your own model support is a hard requirement.
- A free tier and privacy first defaults match what you want from a browser.
Choose Opera Neon if
- The capability is generally available rather than early access.
- Building apps and reports in cloud virtual machines is a capability you would use.
- Tasks that run on a schedule or trigger, not only when you ask, are part of the plan.
| Feature | B Brave Leo AI Browsing |
O Opera Neon |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
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Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingIntegrations & Tool Calling AI browsing runs in an isolated profile where cookies, logged in state and caches from regular browsing do not carry over, so it acts on websites as a browser rather than through the user's accounts. Leo reads PDFs, Google Docs and Sheets as page context. Brave names no connector, tool calling route or authenticated action framework. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsing and brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonIntegrations & Tool Calling Apart from a short fixed list of Google tools, Neon Do works through the browser session. Opera names no connector catalog and no way to add custom tools or authenticated actions. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingWorkflow Orchestration AI browsing carries out one multi step task per session, such as researching across several sites, comparing products or checking promo codes, in an open tab. Brave names no multi agent or composed workflow. The feature sits behind an opt in flag in early testing. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonWorkflow Orchestration The browser has separate agents for separate outcomes, namely Neon Chat, Neon Do for actions, Make for creation and three Research Agents. Neon Do carries out multi step tasks across a group of related tabs. Opera names no composed or multi agent workflow. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingTriggers & Channel Coverage AI browsing has to be manually invoked by the user, a design choice Brave states, and it stays off until the user turns it on. Brave names no schedule, event or background trigger. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonTriggers & Channel Coverage Scheduled tasks let Neon Do start work on its own, and the paid plan includes skill cards and scheduled tasks for recurring automation. Opera names no event or webhook trigger. Sourceoperaneon.com/subscriptionread 2026-09-27 |
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| Knowledge & context | ||
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Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingKnowledge Grounding & RAG Leo grounds answers in Brave Search results and in the page, PDF, Google Doc or Sheet in view, assembled per query, and can summarize, translate and analyze that content. Brave names no maintained index over the user's own knowledge. SourceBrave, brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonKnowledge Grounding & RAG Research Agents gather and synthesize web sources for each request, and Local Research uses the user's browsing context. Tasks share context across related tabs. Opera names no index it maintains over the user's own knowledge. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingMemory & State Persistence Leo Memories are facts and preferences the user enters, stored on the device, editable and deletable at any time, which Leo consults across chats, and chat history can also be saved locally and continued. The user maintains the memories, and Brave states no lifetime for them. Sourcebrave.com/whats-new/leo-memoriesread 2026-09-27 |
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Opera NeonMemory & State Persistence The user can teach Neon long term preferences, and Neon also saves them from conversations with a Save Memory button. Saved memories can be viewed, edited or removed in Settings. Chats and workflows are kept for 365 days on Opera's servers, and Opera does not say how long memories last. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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| Control & trust | ||
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Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingHuman Oversight & Guardrails A second model checks each action against the user's intent, and actions it flags as misaligned trigger a warning and require the user's explicit permission before they run. Users can inspect and pause sessions, and browsing happens in an open tab. The alignment checker sees the system prompt, the user's prompt and the task model's response, and permission requests are kept for specific actions it judges risky rather than asked site by site. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonHuman Oversight & Guardrails A side panel shows the steps Neon Do plans to take, before and while it acts. The user can pause, stop, redirect or take over at any point. External AI tools connected over MCP take actions in the browser only when the user allows it. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingSecurity, Identity & Governance Protections include the isolated agent profile, no retention of chats and no training on them, no collection of identifiers such as IP addresses, and doubled bug bounty rewards for agentic findings. Brave names no access model or attestation for Leo, and no roles or SSO for who can run the agent. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsing and brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonSecurity, Identity & Governance Access is by personal Opera account, with no roles, SSO or team administration. Opera runs public and private bug bounty programs for Neon and names no security attestation. Credentials and payment details stay in the browser session, and models are not trained on user data. Sourceoperaneon.com/legal/securityread 2026-09-27 |
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Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingObservability & Auditability Users can inspect AI browsing sessions, the agent cannot delete its own session logs, and all agent browsing happens in a visible open tab rather than a sidebar, which shows what happened. Brave names no audit trail or trace of why the agent acted. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonObservability & Auditability The user watches Neon Do work, with a side panel showing the plan and next steps, and Neon Chat shows which tabs it is using. Chat and Do activity is kept for 365 days, and the user can review or delete it. Opera names no trace, log export or audit trail. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingDeployment & Data Residency Bring Your Own Model runs Leo on the user's own local or remote models, keeping inference on hardware the user controls, and the browser itself is a client on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. Brave's own service offers no region or residency choice, and the free version needs no account. SourceBrave, brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonDeployment & Data Residency Planning uses cloud models while Neon Do runs locally in the desktop browser. Chat, Research and stored activity run on Opera's servers. Opera names no region choice, residency option or private deployment. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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| Solution readiness | ||
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Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Leo ships a handful of pre configured Skills, prompt shortcuts such as explaining a topic simply, beside Skills users write themselves. Skills are prompt templates, and Brave names no prebuilt agents. Sourcebrave.com/blog/leo-skillsread 2026-09-27 |
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Opera NeonPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Neon Cards are skill like instructions for a type of task. They are organized into decks by area of work, in a library the user can draw from or add to, and they work across Chat, Do and the Research Agents. Opera does not list the cards or say what each one does. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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| Platform extensibility | ||
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Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingModel Flexibility & Routing The user chooses among models from Mixtral, Anthropic's Claude and Meta's Llama, with more on Premium, and Bring Your Own Model connects local or remote models, including third party APIs. Premium also raises usage limits, while free access can vary with traffic. SourceBrave, brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonModel Flexibility & Routing In Neon Chat the user picks the model from Gemini, Grok, GPT and GPT Pro, Claude Opus and Sonnet, DeepSeek, GLM-5 and Qwen3, with Veo and Nano Banana for media. The paid plan includes full model choice. Neon Do routes each task to a model itself. Sourceoperaneon.com/subscriptionread 2026-09-27 |
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APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Bring Your Own Model points Leo at other models. It does not let other software call Leo, and the Brave Search API is a separate product. Brave names no API, SDK or MCP server that drives Leo or AI browsing. SourceBrave, brave.com/leoread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility External AI tools can connect to Neon as an MCP server to read tabs, take screenshots and act in the live browser session. The Opera Browser CLI (npm opera-browser-cli) lets an agent open pages, snapshot, click, fill forms and switch tabs. Opera names no public endpoint, auth scheme or tool list for the MCP server, and no API or SDK. Sourceoperaneon.com/resource-hub/how-does-opera-browser-cli-reduce-tokensread 2026-09-27 |
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Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingTesting, Debugging & Optimization For the agent, Brave names no evaluation harness, test cases or quality gate. Brave has published its own prompt injection research on agentic browsing. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonTesting, Debugging & Optimization For the user's tasks, Opera names no way to evaluate results, no test cases and no quality gate. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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| Specialist automation | ||
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Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
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Brave Leo AI BrowsingBrowser & Computer Use AI browsing drives the Brave browser itself in an isolated profile and open tab, visiting and analyzing sites, comparing products, checking promo codes, summarizing news and completing tasks. It is opt in, off by default and in early testing across all release channels. SourceBrave, brave.com/blog/ai-browsingread 2026-10-06 |
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Opera NeonBrowser & Computer Use Neon Do runs locally in the Neon browser and acts on webpages in the user's logged in session, opening and managing tabs within a task. External agents connected over MCP or the Opera Browser CLI can open pages, take snapshots, click, fill forms and switch tabs. Sourceoperaneon.com/faqread 2026-09-27 |
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Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | B Brave Leo AI Browsing |
O Opera Neon |
|---|---|---|
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Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Free in the Brave browser, no account; Leo Premium $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year | Free download with basic Neon Chat; subscription $19.90 a month for agentic features |
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Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Public, exact | Public, exact |
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Billing Primary billing axis |
freemium subscription | per month subscription |
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Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Low variable cost | Low variable cost |
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Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
Free tierTrial
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Free tier
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Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Self-serve | Self-serve |
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Pricing verified When this pricing was last checked |
Product updates
Newest first, each linked to its source.
Brave Leo AI Browsing
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· Security / enterprise
Leo conversations with the open weight GLM model are now end to end encrypted.
Source
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