The honest comparison.
Both rent you real Chromium.The difference shows up on the invoice.
Either platform will run your Playwright code over CDP. What differs is the billing model, what the live view can do, and how much platform sits between you and the browser.
The same seven questions, both answers.As published, checked July 2026.
| Aspect | BrowserGen | Browserbase |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat monthly price for N concurrent browsers. No per-minute or per-GB metering. | Plan fee plus metered browser hours (and proxy bandwidth) beyond the included allowance. |
| Connection | Standard CDP websocket: Playwright connectOverCDP, Puppeteer connect. | Standard CDP websocket, plus a proprietary SDK layer and framework integrations. |
| Live view | Watch and control every session from the dashboard, on every plan, including the trial. | Session live view and replay depend on plan and debugging tooling. |
| Session length | 60 seconds to 6 hours per session, chosen per request. | Limits vary by plan tier; long sessions occupy metered hours. |
| Geo targeting | Country (and city) selection included on every plan; bring-your-own proxy supported. | Proxies available, typically metered per GB on top of the plan. |
| Team | Unlimited workspace members on every plan. | Seat counts depend on plan tier. |
| Trial | 7 days free, full product, one concurrent browser. Nothing charged until the trial ends. | Free tier with limited included hours. |
A fair note: Browserbase is a strong product with a bigger feature catalog (stealth tooling, extensions, captcha integrations, session replay). If you need those today, it may fit you better. Comparison reflects published information as of July 2026; check their site for current details.
Three reasons teams pick BrowserGen.All three are about staying small.
The bill is a number you chose.
Metered browser hours make sense until an agent loop runs all weekend. BrowserGen charges for concurrency: you pick how many browsers can run at once and that is the invoice, whether your sessions ran one hour or seven hundred. Cost control becomes a slider, not a monitoring project.
The live view is a control surface, not a replay.
Watching is table stakes; BrowserGen lets anyone on the team take the mouse mid-session. Captchas, one-off logins, and stuck steps get handled by a person in the actual session while the automation waits, then the script carries on with the state the human created.
Small enough to trust.
Four session endpoints, a usage endpoint, and standard CDP. There is no proprietary layer to learn or to lock you in: if you ever leave, your automation code leaves unchanged. The docs fit in an afternoon, including the parts you will never need.
Run the comparison yourself.
Point an existing Playwright script at a BrowserGen session. If it does not feel simpler, the trial cost you nothing.
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