# Browserbase rents you the browser. Ghostget removes it from reach.

[Browserbase](https://www.browserbase.com/) runs cloud Chromium sessions you drive over CDP with Playwright, Puppeteer, or its own [Stagehand](https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand) SDK, at whatever concurrency you pay for. It answers where the browser runs. Ghostget answers a different question: what the agent is allowed to do once one exists, by removing the steerable browser entirely.

This page describes Browserbase and Stagehand's published model and Ghostget's v0.18.28 contract, checked against each project's public documentation in September 2026.

## Infrastructure versus capability

Browserbase is infrastructure. A session gives your code a remote, proxied, stealth-configured Chromium it steers directly: every selector, click, and navigation is yours to choose, and session replay and inspection help you debug what happened. Stagehand, its companion SDK, raises the abstraction with `act`, `extract`, and `observe` so an agent can describe intent while the model resolves the concrete steps. Both share the property that someone, human or model, is driving a live page.

Ghostget is a capability layer, not infrastructure. There is no session to rent because there is no browser surface to steer: the caller names a reviewed operation, the kernel binds the exact account, transport, and contract, and one bounded result returns. Public-page reads run as a single HTTP request on your own machine; account actions run against fixed provider boundaries under your local credentials.

## Where the session lives is a data boundary

A hosted session means your authenticated traffic, cookies, and page content traverse a third party's browser. Browserbase publishes SOC 2 and HIPAA attestations and session isolation controls, which is the right answer when a managed browser is genuinely required. It is still a trust decision you make for every credential that enters the session.

Ghostget keeps custody local by construction. Auth locators resolve to one account realm and transport on your machine; secrets load only inside an isolated credential helper; and results land in your filesystem under your permissions. Nothing is proxied through a hosted browser because none exists.

## Side by side

| Decision | Browserbase + Stagehand | Ghostget |
| --- | --- | --- |
| What you get | A cloud browser session plus agent primitives (`act`, `extract`, `observe`) | Named operations whose inputs, outputs, and risk levels are reviewed per release |
| Who drives | Your code or model resolves the steps inside the session | Nobody. The operation contract owns the exchange; the agent cannot steer |
| Where credentials live | In the remote session you configure and pay for | On your machine, bound to one account and provider target, opaque to the caller |
| Scale story | Hundreds of parallel sessions, proxies, stealth, replay | Local commands; throughput is not the product |
| Failure shape | A session or step fails; the driver retries or reroutes | The operation fails closed and names the evidence; an indeterminate write is never blindly retried |
| Cost model | Per-hour sessions plus concurrency and stealth tiers | MIT-licensed local software; your accounts and network are the only cost |

## When to pick which

Pick Browserbase when the workload needs a real, steerable browser at scale: hundreds of parallel sessions, bot-resistant targets, replay for audit, or compliance tiers your own fleet cannot provide. Stagehand earns its keep when you want intent-level steps without hand-maintaining selectors.

Pick Ghostget when the work is a known operation on an account you own, and the job is to keep a coding agent inside it. Reading an inbox, listing conversations, archiving one media item, or capturing a page as Markdown does not need a rented Chromium; it needs a boundary that cannot be talked past.

## Check the operation set first

If the [supported action set](https://ghostget.com/docs/reference/provider-capabilities/) covers your task, Ghostget removes both the browser and the hosting bill. If not, a hosted session is the honest tool. The lane map is at [How agents reach the web](https://ghostget.com/compare/).