Decide whether this move earns its cost
A queue receives more browser jobs than the account can run at once. Workers must wait for capacity and recover slots after failed jobs.
Steel's managed and self-hosted choices make infrastructure ownership a concrete deciding factor. Keep that option on the shortlist when operating the browser is intentional; evaluate Notte when owning fewer execution and authentication components is the actual goal.
Notte is a candidate when its published concurrency tiers fit the queue and the team wants browser and Python execution resources in one platform. Capacity must be checked separately from the hourly rate.
An existing pool or queue integration can outweigh a rate difference when it already handles the burst reliably. A single-session latency result does not establish fleet behavior for any provider.
Keep the result contract stable
A fixed burst of jobs, the account's documented concurrency entitlement and a bounded application queue.
The queue drains without exceeding the entitlement; every allocated browser is associated with one job and eventually released.
Preserve the evidence contract across the move: Queue arrival and start times, allocated sessions, completion counts and recovered capacity.
Map the workflow's resources
| Requirement | Steel | Notte |
|---|---|---|
| Browser control | Documented | Documented |
| Saved browser state | Documented | Documented |
| Live view | Documented | Documented |
| Deployment choice | Documented | Enterprise options |
Sources: docs.steel.dev [1] ↗docs.steel.dev [2] ↗docs.steel.dev [3] ↗docs.steel.dev [4] ↗docs.notte.cc [5] ↗docs.notte.cc [6] ↗docs.notte.cc [7] ↗docs.notte.cc [8] ↗
Capacity and limits
Steel: Steel's pricing and limits page describes hosted account entitlements. For a self-hosted deployment, capacity depends on the resources and orchestration you operate as well as the browser process.
Notte: The public plans list 5, 25 and 100 concurrent browser sessions, with custom limits on Enterprise. Session duration and concurrent capacity are separate plan limits; a larger technical API limit does not override the plan.
Sources: docs.steel.dev [1] ↗notte.cc [2] ↗
Browser control
Steel: Steel sessions expose browser connection details for existing automation code. Create and release the owned session through Steel's lifecycle API; a browser library is the controller, not the infrastructure scheduler.
Notte: Create an owned browser session, connect Playwright or Puppeteer over CDP, and stop the session when the work finishes. Browser lifecycle management remains necessary even when the control socket disconnects.
Deployment ownership
Steel: Compare managed Steel with the documented self-hosted path explicitly. Self-hosting gives the team infrastructure responsibility that a hosted browser subscription would otherwise cover.
Notte: Use a remote browser from your existing process or deploy the browser automation as a Notte Function. These choices put lifecycle, scheduling and monitoring responsibilities in different places.
Pricing model
Steel: Hosted browser plans and a self-hosted browser have different cost structures. For self-hosting, include the worker, compute, networking, storage and operations rather than assigning the open-source code a zero operating cost.
Notte: The public usage rates are $0.01 per browser-hour, $0.05 per Function-hour and $10 per GB of managed proxy traffic. Paid plans return their price as usage credits. Price the relevant meters and plan eligibility for the workload.
Sources: docs.steel.dev [1] ↗notte.cc [2] ↗
Cut over one responsibility at a time
For this Steel-to-Notte migration, keep the business assertion outside provider resource management. Source profile, connection, file and execution IDs are not valid target IDs; use a documented transfer path or establish the corresponding resource in Notte.
Retain source job history and a rollback route until the target pilot passes. A migration checklist is not evidence that saved state or runtime behavior is automatically portable.
- Keep admission control in place while introducing the target provider.
- Move one queue partition and record allocation failures separately from task failures.
- Compare drained jobs, leaked slots and cost per completed job before raising concurrency.
Sources: docs.steel.dev [1] ↗notte.cc [2] ↗docs.notte.cc [3] ↗
A proposed acceptance case
This is an evaluation design, not a claim that this workflow has been executed successfully on every provider.
| Part of the test | Required observation |
|---|---|
| Controlled input | A fixed burst of jobs, the account's documented concurrency entitlement and a bounded application queue. |
| Pass condition | The queue drains without exceeding the entitlement; every allocated browser is associated with one job and eventually released. |
| Negative case | Fail a job after browser allocation. Verify that the next queued job can acquire the recovered slot and that retries do not create untracked sessions. |
| Evidence to retain | Queue arrival and start times, allocated sessions, completion counts and recovered capacity. |
A reason to delay or keep the source
Fail a job after browser allocation. Verify that the next queued job can acquire the recovered slot and that retries do not create untracked sessions.
Steel: Hosted and self-hosted Steel are different operating choices. A cloud feature's documentation does not establish identical packaging, retention or operational support in a self-hosted installation.
Delay cutover when the target's selected plan, required artifact path or supported website-account flow is not established. Resolve that gap before moving real jobs, even if the rate comparison favors the target.
Sources: docs.steel.dev [1] ↗notte.cc [2] ↗