Browserbase vs Amazon Nova Act (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Browserbase if

• Fits if you run browser agents in code and need hosted browsers
• Works for a developer who wants sessions observed and replayed

Look elsewhere if

• Tight if you stay on Free: 1 browser hour, 15-minute sessions and 7-day retention
• Watch out: usage past the allowance is billed at the plan's rate, so the bill grows with hours and proxies
• Not for you if you need on-prem, which the FAQ says it does not offer
• Skip it if you need HIPAA or SSO on a self-serve plan

Pick Amazon Nova Act if

• Fits if you already build on AWS and write Python
• Works for developers who want browser tasks that can hand off to a human

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want no-code, as it needs code and an AWS account
• Watch out: the documentation lists a single supported Region, US East (N. Virginia)
• Pricey if you run many agents: each parallel agent is billed on its own at $4.75 an hour
• Skip it if you want a free try, as none is listed

Browserbase

• Plans scale past included usage at the plan's rate, so the bill grows with browser hours, proxies and API calls.
• Free has no captcha solving and stops sessions at 15 minutes.
• HIPAA (BAA) and SSO are listed for enterprise customers, not the self-serve plans.
• The FAQ says it does not offer on-prem deployment; hybrid setups come through consulting.

Amazon Nova Act

• The documentation lists a single supported AWS Region, US East (N. Virginia).
• Billing is by agent hour, so cost depends on how long workflows run; each parallel agent is billed on its own.
• It needs an AWS account and code; there is no no-code builder on the pages read.

Browserbase

Cloud browsers

Fleets of headless browsers that agents control through Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium or Stagehand.

Search and Fetch APIs

Search returns relevant sites from one query; Fetch returns pages as HTML, JSON or markdown for agents.

Agent identity

Captcha solving on paid plans, plus stealth mode (basic on Developer and Startup, advanced on Scale).

Runtime and model gateway

Browserbase Functions run deployed agents on its servers, and one API key reaches major models through Stagehand.

Observability

Session recordings, logs and prompts for debugging an agent, with data kept 7 to 30+ days by plan.

Amazon Nova Act

Natural language plus Python

Each act() call passes a plain-language task to the model inside a session, and the surrounding script is ordinary Python.

Browser workflow automation

Listed uses include data entry into web forms, extracting fields from sites and dashboards, and running QA test cases in the browser.

Human-in-the-loop

An agent can escalate to a human supervisor when appropriate, and the waiting time is not billed.

Tools and APIs

Agents can call APIs and remote MCP tools, or use other agent frameworks, alongside the browser.

AWS deployment and monitoring

Native integration with Amazon Bedrock AgentCore for deployment, CloudWatch for monitoring and IAM for permissions.

Browserbase

• Free$0

  3 concurrent browsers, 1 browser hour, 15-minute sessions and 7-day data retention; no captcha solving.

• Developer$20

  per month

  25 concurrent browsers, 100 browser hours then $0.12/hour, 1 GB of proxies then $12/GB, captcha solving.

• Startup$99

  per month

  100 concurrent browsers, 500 browser hours then $0.10/hour, 5 GB of proxies then $10/GB.

• ScaleCustom

  250+ concurrent browsers, usage-based hours and proxies, advanced stealth mode and verified agents.

Amazon Nova Act

• Nova Act workflowsUsage-based

  $4.75 per agent hour of real elapsed time. Parallel agents are billed separately; time waiting on a human response is excluded.