AgentWeb vs Steel: verified actions vs cloud browser sessions

By Andrey Marey, Founder of AgentWeb | Published: | Updated: | Facts checked October 26, 2026

AgentWeb (https://www.agentweb.us) is web infrastructure for AI agents. Your agent calls verified actions on real sites and gets back a clear done or failed, with a receipt, at $0.05 per completed action and nothing charged when an action fails. Steel gives your agent a cloud browser: an API that starts real Chrome sessions your code or agent then drives. If the job is to finish real tasks on real sites and prove they finished, AgentWeb is built for exactly that.

Key Takeaways

  • Different layers. AgentWeb gives your agent ready-made actions on mapped sites (log in, search, book, order, submit). Steel gives your agent a browser session to drive with Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium or a browser agent.
  • You pay for finished work on AgentWeb. $0.05 per completed action, failed actions refunded, no subscription. Steel bills browser time by the minute, proxy traffic and CAPTCHA solves, on a free Launch plan or a $250 a month Scale plan.
  • Logins work differently. On AgentWeb, the user connects once on a hosted sign-in page and the agent never sees credentials. Steel stores credentials you upload and injects them into the login form, with TOTP codes generated for you; the feature is in beta.
  • Completion is reported, not guessed. Every completed AgentWeb action returns a structured result and a receipt. Steel gives you recordings, readable traces and a live viewer, and deciding whether the business task happened is still your code.
  • Coverage. AgentWeb's public map library listed 1,806 mapped domains and 8,800+ actions on October 26, 2026, with new maps on request. Steel can open any site a browser can reach; how far a task gets depends on your automation.

The short version

AgentWeb is web infrastructure for AI agents. Your agent does not drive a browser. It calls a verified action, fills in the inputs and gets back a result and a receipt.

Steel is browser infrastructure. It starts real browsers in the cloud, keeps them signed in across runs, and handles proxies and CAPTCHAs. Your script or your agent still decides every click.

If your agent needs to finish real tasks on real sites, and you want to pay only when they finish, start with AgentWeb.

What AgentWeb is

AgentWeb is an action index for the web. It maps real websites ahead of time as typed actions. Each action has declared inputs, scoped permissions and a verification step. Your agent calls an action through MCP or the REST API, and AgentWeb returns structured data plus a verification receipt.

There is no page-by-page loop for your agent to run. The agent is the brain; AgentWeb is the hands.

Three things come with every action:

  • Account connection. When an action needs the user's account on the target site, the user signs in once through a hosted connection page. Credentials are vaulted per account and never exposed to the agent.
  • Billing by outcome. $0.05 per completed action. Failed actions are refunded. Retries can be deduplicated with an Idempotency-Key header, so a retried request is not run twice.
  • Proof. Every completed action returns a receipt, and the dashboard shows per-session receipts.

Setup is one command in Claude Code. Codex, Cursor, Windsurf and any other MCP client can add the same server URL.

Coverage grows map by map. On October 26, 2026, the public map library listed 1,806 mapped domains with 8,800+ actions in total. If a site your agent needs is missing, you can request the map. AgentWeb tells agents to report the gap or request the map rather than quietly falling back to browsing, so failures stay visible.

What Steel is

Steel (https://steel.dev) describes itself as open-source browser infrastructure for AI agents. It comes in two forms:

  • Steel Cloud. A Sessions API that starts managed cloud browsers. You connect over CDP with Playwright, Puppeteer or Selenium, or plug in a browser agent such as Browser Use, Stagehand or a model's computer-use tool. Extras include residential proxies, CAPTCHA solving, persistent profiles, a Credentials API, Agent Traces and a live session viewer.
  • Steel Browser. The open-source core, Apache 2.0 licensed, with about 7,900 GitHub stars in October 2026. You can self-host it, for example with a one-click Railway template.

Steel also ships a CLI and a set of Skills that teach coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor and Codex to use Steel browsers correctly.

The core model is a real browser that something has to steer. That works on almost any site, and it also means every run pays for browser time, and every run can go a different way depending on the script or agent driving it.

Side-by-side comparison

AgentWeb Steel
What your agent gets Verified, typed actions on real sites, ready to call Cloud browser sessions to drive over CDP, plus scrape, screenshot and PDF endpoints
How a task runs One action call with declared inputs Your script or browser agent clicks and types through pages
Failed work Refunded, not billed Browser minutes, proxy traffic and CAPTCHA solves used are billed; no refund for failed runs is published
Proof of completion Structured result plus receipt per action Recordings, readable traces and a live viewer; judging task success is up to you
Logins User connects once through hosted sign-in; credentials vaulted, never shown to the agent Credentials API (beta) injects stored logins into forms; profiles keep cookies and login state across runs
2FA Handled by the user during the hosted sign-in, not by the agent TOTP codes generated from a stored secret; other cases go to a human through the interactive live view
CAPTCHAs and bot walls Not something your agent drives; actions run at the network level against maintained maps Auto-solves reCAPTCHA and Turnstile among others; DataDome, Imperva, Amazon WAF and FunCAPTCHA are detected but not auto-solved; solving not guaranteed
Pricing unit $0.05 per completed action $0.10 per browser hour on Launch, $0.08 on Scale; proxies $10 or $6 per GB; CAPTCHA solves $3 or $1 per 1,000
Entry price $25 credit block (500 actions), credits never expire Free Launch plan with $30 of one-time credits valid 90 days; $10 deposit needed for proxies and CAPTCHA solving
How it connects MCP server or REST API; one command in Claude Code SDKs, REST API, CDP WebSocket, CLI and Skills for coding agents
Site coverage 1,806 mapped domains, 8,800+ actions (Oct 26, 2026); new maps on request Any site a browser can reach, with results depending on your automation
Session limits Not applicable; each action is one call 10 concurrent sessions up to 15 minutes on Launch; 100 up to 1 hour on Scale; 1,000+ up to 24 hours on Enterprise
Enterprise Performance SLA, custom maps for private software, dedicated support Stealth browser, reserved browser pools, SSO, support and uptime SLAs; HIPAA-ready BAA from Scale up

How they handle the hard parts

Doing the same task twice the same way

On Steel, the browser is real and reliable, but the path through the page comes from your Playwright script or your browser agent. A script breaks when the page changes. An agent decides what to click on every run.

An AgentWeb action is the same call every time. It either completes and returns a receipt, or fails and costs nothing. Keeping the map working when a site changes is AgentWeb's job.

Logins and two-factor authentication

AgentWeb moves the login out of the agent's path. When an action needs the user's account, the agent starts a connection and shows the user a link. The user signs in on a hosted page, including any 2FA step. After that, the agent calls actions with scoped permission and never handles a password or a cookie.

AgentWeb also keeps access and approval separate. A connected account proves access. It does not mean the user approved a specific order or amount, so agents are expected to show the inputs and get approval before a paid or irreversible action.

Steel has put real work into this too. Its Credentials API stores a username, password and optional TOTP secret for a site, injects them into the login form and blurs the fields so a vision agent cannot read them. That is a good design for keeping secrets away from the model. Two things are left to you: collecting and storing each end user's password in the first place, and handling 2FA that is not TOTP, such as SMS or email codes, where Steel's docs point to a human taking over through the interactive live view. The Credentials API is labelled beta in Steel's docs.

CAPTCHAs and bot walls

Steel is strong here. It auto-solves common challenges including reCAPTCHA v2, reCAPTCHA v3 and Cloudflare Turnstile, and offers residential proxies and, on Enterprise, a stealth Chromium fork. Its docs are clear that solving is not guaranteed, and that DataDome, Imperva, Amazon WAF and FunCAPTCHA challenges are detected but not auto-solved.

With AgentWeb, your agent is not clicking through pages and meeting challenges along the way. Actions run at the network level against maps AgentWeb maintains.

Proving the task finished

AgentWeb returns a structured result and a receipt for every completed action. Completion is something the action reports, not something your agent infers from what a page looked like.

Steel's Agent Traces turn a session into a readable timeline synced with video, which is useful for debugging. Whether the order was placed or the form accepted is still a check you write.

Who AgentWeb is for

  • The task is behind a user's login. Account connection is part of the product, and you never collect or store the user's password.
  • The task has to finish, not just start. Logging in, searching, booking, ordering, submitting and tracking on supported sites, with a receipt you can audit.
  • You want predictable cost. $0.05 per completed action, refunds on failure, no browser minutes or model tokens burned on clicking through pages.
  • Your agent already speaks MCP. One command adds the server, and the agent calls actions directly.
  • You run AgentWeb inside your own product. Enterprise adds custom volume pricing, a performance SLA, custom maps for private software and dedicated support.

Steel fits teams that want to own the browser layer: run their own Playwright or browser-agent code, scrape at scale, test web apps, or self-host an open-source browser.

Pricing compared

All figures come from each vendor's own pages, checked October 26, 2026.

AgentWeb

  • Pay as you go: $0.05 per completed action.
  • Credit blocks: $25 for 500 actions, $50 for 1,000, $100 for 2,000. Credits never expire.
  • No subscription and no monthly minimum.
  • Failed actions are refunded.
  • Reading pages is free up to 20 reads an hour per account, then priced like an action.
  • Enterprise: custom pricing, performance SLA, custom maps for private software and dedicated support.

Steel

Item Launch ($0 a month + usage) Scale ($250 a month + usage)
Included credits $30 once, valid 90 days $100 every month
Browser hours $0.10 per hour, billed by the minute, rounded up $0.08 per hour
Proxy bandwidth $10 per GB $6 per GB
CAPTCHA solves $3 per 1,000, after a $10 account deposit $1 per 1,000
Scrape, screenshot, PDF $5 per 1,000 calls $5 per 1,000 calls
Concurrency and session length 10 sessions, up to 15 minutes each 100 sessions, up to 1 hour each

Enterprise is custom, with 1,000+ concurrent sessions and sessions up to 24 hours.

What this means for a real bill

Do not convert one meter into the other. They measure different things.

AgentWeb's $0.05 is the price of a finished action, and failures cost nothing.

On Steel, the browser itself is cheap. The bigger costs usually sit around it: proxy traffic, CAPTCHA solves, the Scale subscription once you need more than 10 sessions or runs longer than 15 minutes, and the model tokens your own agent spends deciding what to click. A failed run still uses minutes and traffic.

On both products, your own agent's model costs for planning are separate.

Try AgentWeb on the task your agent fails most often today, and count what a finished task costs you. If you want help picking that first task, book a discovery call.

Frequently asked questions

What is AgentWeb?

AgentWeb (https://www.agentweb.us) is web infrastructure for AI agents. Instead of driving a browser, your agent calls verified actions on real sites through MCP or a REST API and gets back a clear done or failed with a receipt. It listed 1,806 mapped domains and 8,800+ actions on October 26, 2026, at $0.05 per completed action, with failed actions refunded.

Is AgentWeb a Steel alternative?

Yes, for tasks on mapped sites. Instead of renting a browser and writing the automation, your agent calls an action and gets a result and a receipt. If a site your agent needs is not mapped yet, you can request the map.

What is the difference between AgentWeb and Steel?

Steel is browser infrastructure: it runs real cloud browsers that your script or browser agent drives. AgentWeb maps sites ahead of time as verified actions, so your agent makes one call with declared inputs and gets a reported result. Steel reaches more sites; AgentWeb finishes mapped tasks the same way every time and bills only finished work.

Which is cheaper, AgentWeb or Steel?

AgentWeb charges $0.05 per completed action and refunds failures. Steel's browser time is cheap at $0.08 to $0.10 an hour, but proxies, CAPTCHA solves, the Scale plan for higher limits and your agent's model tokens add up, and failed runs are not refunded. For repeated tasks on mapped sites, AgentWeb's cost is fixed and known before the run.

How do AgentWeb and Steel handle logins and 2FA?

On AgentWeb, the user signs in once on a hosted page, including any 2FA step, and the agent then acts with scoped permission without seeing credentials. On Steel, you store each login in its Credentials API (beta) and it fills the form for you, including TOTP codes; other 2FA methods need a person to take over through the live view.

Do I pay for failed tasks?

On AgentWeb, no. Failed actions are refunded. On Steel, a session uses browser minutes, traffic and CAPTCHA solves whether or not the task succeeds, and its pricing page does not offer refunds for failed runs.

Is Steel open source?

Yes. Steel Browser is Apache 2.0 licensed and had about 7,900 GitHub stars in October 2026, and you can self-host it. Steel Cloud is the paid managed service. AgentWeb is a hosted service you reach over MCP or REST.

Can I use AgentWeb and Steel together?

Yes. Some teams call AgentWeb actions for the tasks that must finish reliably on mapped sites, and keep a cloud browser for scraping, testing or open-ended browsing elsewhere. AgentWeb's guidance is to report or request a missing map rather than hide a fallback, so you always know which path ran.

Talk it through

If you are building an agent that has to get real work done on the web, bring the task and the sites. I will tell you straight whether AgentWeb covers it today, and if a site is missing, how to get it mapped. Book a call with me.

AgentWeb is not affiliated with Steel. Product details change, so test your exact sites and tasks before you commit. For corrections, email support@agentweb.us.

Sources (accessed October 26, 2026)

AgentWeb:

Steel: