The same workload, two very different bills
A sustained automation workload of roughly ten thousand browser-hours a month with 100 GB of proxy. Here is what each side charges for it.
Oculr vs Browserbase, feature by feature
Browserbase is excellent managed cloud infrastructure with instant elastic scale. Oculr is local-first browser infrastructure you own. Here is every dimension side by side.
| Dimension | Oculr | Browserbase |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Local or self-hosted. You own the browsers and the machine they run on. | Their cloud only. You rent headless browsers by the minute. |
| Pricing model | A flat plan plus your own compute. Browser-hours are not metered. | A base plan plus roughly $0.10 per browser-hour and $10 per GB of proxy, metered with no cap. |
| Cost at sustained load | Flat, on hardware you already run. The per-hour and proxy markups disappear. | Around $2,000 a month at ten thousand browser-hours, and it climbs the more you run. |
| Fingerprinting | Fingerprint control is built into the engine, so getters return real signatures rather than a patched headless profile. | Headless Chromium. Advanced stealth is limited to the top Scale tier. |
| Fingerprint control | Per-surface controls with seeded canvas, WebGL and audio noise, tuned per profile. | Stealth is a plan-level toggle rather than a granular per-profile control. |
| Headless and headed | Run headless for speed or headed for a real desktop session. | Cloud headless. There is no real headed desktop session. |
| Concurrency | Bounded by your own hardware, with a native fleet API and no per-seat cap. | Three to 250+ concurrent browsers by tier, elastic inside their cloud. |
| Automation protocols | CDP, Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium and MCP, with ready-made connection recipes per profile. | Playwright, Puppeteer and Selenium over a connect URL, plus their Stagehand framework. |
| AI agent layer | A built-in agent, a workflow recorder and self-healing selectors, all MCP-native. | The Stagehand framework and Director. |
| Data and privacy | Sessions run on your machine and never leave your infrastructure. | Sessions run in their cloud. SOC 2, with HIPAA and a DPA on the Scale tier. |
| Proxies | Bring your own at wholesale, bound per profile and stored in a credential vault. | Bundled proxies billed at roughly $10 per GB. |
| Persistent identities | Durable local profiles that keep cookies, passwords and a per-profile proxy. | Contexts and persistence, but the underlying cloud sessions are ephemeral. |
| Instant elastic burst | You provision the compute, so it suits sustained, predictable load. | Spin up hundreds of browsers in seconds with zero ops. Their clear strength. |
| Lock-in | Runs offline, with no per-request dependency on a vendor cloud. | Cloud-dependent by design. |
Infrastructure you own, not a meter you rent
Beyond price, the deeper difference is control. The engine, the machine and the data are yours, and a real browser is harder to flag than a headless one in someone else's cloud.
A real browser, not a headless cloud session
Fingerprint control is built into the engine, so detection-relevant getters return real signatures. A headless browser in a shared cloud is far easier to flag, and Browserbase reserves advanced stealth for its top tier.
Self-host the fleet on one server
Want Browserbase-style concurrency without the meter? Put Oculr on a single dedicated server. Dozens of concurrent profiles for a flat monthly price.
Own the data, run offline
- Sessions run on your machine and never reach a vendor cloud
- Works offline, with no per-request dependency on an external API
- Run headless for speed or headed for a real desktop session
- No lock-in: it is your machine, your engine and your data
Your automation attaches unchanged
Oculr exposes CDP plus ready-made Playwright, Puppeteer and Selenium connection recipes for every profile, and it is MCP-native so an agent can drive a fleet directly. Raw CDP runs underneath, so none of the detectable globals that automation frameworks inject ever touch the page, and you can run headless for speed or headed for a real desktop session.
- CDP, Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium and MCP
- No injected automation globals on the page
- Headless or headed, your choice per run
When Browserbase may fit better
We would rather you pick the right tool than the loudest one. Browserbase is a strong product, and there are cases where its managed cloud is the better call.
- 01You need to burst to hundreds of browsers in seconds with zero ops. Their cloud scales elastically; Oculr asks you to provision the compute.
- 02You want fully managed infrastructure with nothing to run yourself. Browserbase handles the machines, the scaling and the uptime for you.
- 03You need instant global points of presence without renting servers in each region. Their cloud spans regions out of the box.
Frequently asked questions
Is Oculr a drop-in replacement for Browserbase?+
For sustained, cost-sensitive automation, yes. Your Playwright, Puppeteer and Selenium scripts attach over standard endpoints, so the connection code barely changes. What is different is the model: Browserbase runs browsers in their cloud and bills per browser-hour, while Oculr runs on hardware you own or rent, with no per-hour metering. If you need to burst to hundreds of browsers in seconds with zero ops, their elastic cloud is genuinely better and we will say so.
What does it actually cost at scale?+
A sustained workload of roughly ten thousand browser-hours a month with 100 GB of proxy lands near $2,000 on Browserbase once you pass the included usage, because browser-hours and proxy bandwidth both meter with no cap. On Oculr the browser-hours are free because they run on your own machine, and you bring proxies at wholesale instead of a bundled markup, so the same work is a flat plan plus the cost of the box.
Can I run a fleet on my own server?+
Yes. A single dedicated server runs a fleet of profiles at a flat monthly price. As a reference point, an entry dedicated server with 64 GB of RAM comfortably runs dozens of concurrent profiles for well under a hundred dollars a month, with no per-browser-hour charge at all. You keep full control of the machine and the data never leaves it.
Do my existing automation scripts work?+
Yes. Oculr exposes CDP plus ready-made Playwright, Puppeteer and Selenium connection recipes per profile, and it is MCP-native for agent control. Raw CDP runs underneath, so none of the detectable globals that automation frameworks inject ever touch the page.
Give your agents a browser that sites trust
Spin up your first two profiles free. Point an agent at them, run a task, and watch Oculr turn it into a workflow you can scale.
No credit card required · Cancel anytime