Can the provider start and run the fleet you need?
Concurrent sessions, session creation rate and HTTP request rate are different limits. A plan that allows a hundred open browsers may still need time to start them. Polling or retrying without a budget can exhaust API capacity before the browser cap is reached.
If a thousand jobs arrive together but only fifty browser slots are available, queue jobs before allocating browsers. Starting all jobs immediately can turn ordinary capacity management into timeouts, retries and idle browser charges.
Compare operational limits
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.
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.
Sources: notte.cc [1] ↗docs.steel.dev [2] ↗
Compare the browser lifecycle
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.
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.
Compare the billing contract
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.
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.
Sources: notte.cc [1] ↗docs.steel.dev [2] ↗
How to evaluate this choice
A quota table establishes what an account may request. A measured concurrency curve establishes how the tested workload behaved. Keep both in the decision and avoid extrapolating a single-session result to a large fleet.
- Specify the number of simultaneously open browsers and the burst arrival rate.
- Measure time until every requested browser is ready for work.
- Record rate limits and honor the returned retry delay.
- Cap worker concurrency and keep queued tasks outside browser sessions.
- Include failed starts and cleanup in the load test's result.
Requirements side by side
| Requirement | Notte | Steel |
|---|---|---|
| Browser control | Documented | Documented |
| Saved browser state | Documented | Documented |
| Code execution | Python Functions | External worker |
| Deployment choice | Enterprise options | Documented |
Sources: docs.notte.cc [1] ↗docs.notte.cc [2] ↗docs.notte.cc [3] ↗docs.notte.cc [4] ↗docs.notte.cc [5] ↗docs.notte.cc [6] ↗docs.steel.dev [7] ↗docs.steel.dev [8] ↗docs.steel.dev [9] ↗docs.steel.dev [10] ↗docs.steel.dev [11] ↗docs.steel.dev [12] ↗
Which approach fits?
Choose Notte when your browser workflow needs saved logins, credential fill or scheduled Python code alongside the browser.
Notte tradeoff: A saved profile restores browser state; it does not prove that a website still considers the user signed in. Use Managed Auth when the workflow needs connection readiness before it starts.
Choose Steel when you want browser infrastructure that can fit a self-hosted deployment, with profiles and credentials available through browser-focused APIs.
Steel tradeoff: 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.
A useful acceptance check
Write a pass/fail result for the real task before running the evaluation. Record the account, configuration and code version next to that result. Repeat failures need an explanation, not an automatically different browser configuration.