Steel

Steel is an open source browser API purpose built for AI agents, a batteries included browser sandbox that lets an agent automate the web without managing infrastructure. The tagline captures the idea: humans use Chrome, agents use Steel. It wraps Chromium behind a REST and WebSocket API, handling session lifecycle, state persistence, and anti detection out of the box, and exposes full Chrome DevTools Protocol access so existing Puppeteer, Playwright, and Selenium scripts connect directly. The project is open source with a Docker container for local or self hosted deployment, and a managed cloud lets teams spin up thousands of browser sessions on demand, with native SDKs in Python, Node, Rust, and Go.

Steel is designed for the realities of agent web use. Sessions start in under a second in region and can run up to twenty four hours, with cookies and local storage saved and injected so an agent can pick up where it left off. Built in rotating proxies, stealth configuration, a custom Chromium fork called Stealth Browser, dedicated IPs, and CAPTCHA solving keep automations from getting flagged, and agents can securely reach auth walled sites. A live Session Viewer with replays and Chrome DevTools debugging turns failed web interactions from guesswork into inspection, and Projects add per project isolation for sessions, credentials, and profiles. Steel Skills provides a catalog of reusable agent skills for the web, and scrape, screenshot, PDF, and structured extract endpoints turn pages into clean data.

Pricing keeps the open source build free to self host, offers free cloud credits to start, and adds Launch, Scale, and Enterprise plans with metered browser rates and usage credits, with an inactivity timeout that releases idle or crashed sessions so they stop billing. School researchers can email for free credit grants.