Comparison
How Driftstack compares.
Driftstack and the platforms below all give code or humans a remote browser session. The difference is in which browser, how fingerprints are produced, and what shows up on the invoice.
Each row in the table below is a category-level fact pulled from each vendor's own marketing — not a benchmark, not a value judgement. Pick whichever fits your workload; Driftstack is the right answer for a specific shape of problem, and we name where it isn't.
Start here
What is an anti-detect browser — and why websites catch them
Websites read hundreds of small signals from every visitor's browser — screen size, fonts, how it draws graphics, how it plays audio — and add them up into a fingerprint of the device. An anti-detect browser is a tool that changes those signals, so a session looks like it came from a different device than the one actually running it.
Most anti-detect tools start with a desktop browser and dress it up as something else — a phone user-agent here, a patched JavaScript API there. That's a costume, and websites have gotten very good at spotting the costume: the surface says "iPhone" while the layers underneath (graphics hashes, timing, error messages) still say otherwise. One mismatch is all a detection system needs.
Driftstack takes a different path: instead of dressing up another browser as an iPhone, it runs the browser the iPhone actually uses — Apple's WebKit — on Apple silicon, so the signals aren't imitated; they're the real thing. The table below compares that approach with four popular platforms, and names the workloads where each of them is the better pick.
The Fingerprint posture row decides most detections. When a website checks how a browser draws graphics (its canvas and WebGL fingerprints), Driftstack produces the same results real iPhones produce — so a session blends into the crowd of genuine iPhone visitors. Every other vendor below produces results that change on every session, which is itself a giveaway that the visitor isn't a normal device. The signal-by-signal methodology is in the full signal table.
| Feature | Driftstack | Browserless | Bright Data | ScrapingBee | Browserbase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Browser engine | Apple WebKit — our own build of Apple's source code (source-level fork) | Chromium / Chrome | Chromium-based scraping browser | Chromium (Puppeteer) | Chromium / Stagehand |
| Primary device target | iPhone 15 Pro / 16 Pro / 17 family · iOS 18.7 · Safari 26.4-26.5 | Desktop Chrome | Desktop + mobile UA simulation | Desktop Chrome | Desktop Chrome |
| Stealth approach | Built into the source itself — nothing patched over while the page runs | Stealth plugins (puppeteer-extra) | Proprietary anti-detection layer | Stealth headers + rotating proxies | Stealth bundles + AI-assisted |
| Fingerprint posture | Canvas + WebGL hash matches real-iPhone population | Configurable per session (unique-per-session hashes) | Real-device fingerprint pool (rotated) | Auto-rotated UA + headers | Per-session profiles (unique-per-session) |
| Pricing model | Per concurrent session, hours unmetered | Per browser-hour + per-unit | Per GB + per request | Per API call (request credits) | Per browser-hour |
| Session metering surprises | None — flat within concurrent cap | Idle browser hours billable | Data-transfer (GB) charges can spike | JavaScript-heavy pages cost more credits | Idle browser hours billable |
| Customer-controlled proxies | Bring your own: SOCKS5 proxy, OpenVPN, or WireGuard VPN — per profile, covering every traffic type (incl. UDP/QUIC/WebRTC) | Per-session HTTP/HTTPS proxy config | Their proxy network is the product | Bundled (their pool) | Per-session HTTP/HTTPS proxy config |
| Data residency | EU compute + database; file storage on Cloudflare R2 (EU + US replication) | US / EU regions | Global; configurable per plan | US default | US / EU regions |
| Point-and-click app for human operators | Yes — desktop app (Manual tiers) | API-first (no GUI) | Browser product + dashboard | API-first (no GUI) | Replay viewer + dashboard |
| SDK languages | TypeScript · Python · Go | Any (REST + Puppeteer) | Any (REST + scraping browser) | Any (REST) | TypeScript · Python |
| Self-hosted option | Yes — three plans (source escrow on Enterprise) | Yes — open-source core | No | No | No |
| Trial path | Free tier · 1 profile · manual · perpetual | Free tier with usage cap | Free trial with credit | 1,000 free credits | Free credits on signup |
Last reviewed 2026-05-10. If a competitor row drifts from current public marketing, mail support@driftstack.dev and we'll update.
Side-by-side
When each is the right answer.
We name the workload each platform fits. If yours doesn't match Driftstack, we'd rather you find the right tool than buy the wrong one and churn.
Driftstack vs Browserless
Browserless is the canonical "Chrome-as-a-service" platform — you rent Chrome browsers in their cloud and drive them with the standard developer tools (Puppeteer / Playwright); the core is open source and can be self-hosted. Pick Browserless when the target site renders fine on desktop Chrome and you don't need iOS-specific signals.
Pick Driftstack when the target site checks iPhone-specific
signals — the browser's identity string, touch-screen events, how
Apple renders fonts
(navigator.userAgent,
User-Agent-Client-Hints,
Touch events, Core Text metrics) — and a Chrome-shaped answer
would give the game away.
Pricing shape
Browserless meters browser-hours plus per-unit operations. Idle browsers count. Driftstack meters concurrent caps; idle is free within your cap.
Driftstack vs Bright Data
Bright Data's core asset is its proxy network — residential, ISP, mobile, datacenter pools at large scale. The Scraping Browser is a Chromium-derived product layered on top. Pick Bright Data when the unlock you need is which IP the request comes from, not which browser engine renders the page.
Pick Driftstack when the unlock you need is the engine — iPhone WebKit returning iOS-shaped fingerprints. Bring your own proxy network or use SOCKS5 / OpenVPN / WireGuard to whatever IP pool you've already paid for. We don't sell proxies; we don't mark up egress — the traffic leaving for the open internet runs over your own exit, so it's not ours to meter.
Pricing shape
Bright Data bills per GB transferred + per request on most products. Driftstack bills concurrent caps; your traffic runs over your own proxy or VPN (your egress), so bandwidth never shows up on our invoice at all.
Driftstack vs ScrapingBee
ScrapingBee's API surface is the simplest of any vendor in this list — POST a URL, get HTML or extracted data back. Stealth headers and proxy rotation are bundled. Pick ScrapingBee when the workload is fetch-this-page-and-hand-me-the-contents and you don't need to interact with the page after rendering.
Pick Driftstack when the workload is interactive — multi-step checkouts, form fills, pop-up dialogs, staying logged in across many requests, cookies that stay saved with each profile — and the engine needs to be iPhone Safari, not generic Chromium.
Pricing shape
ScrapingBee bills per API call with cost multipliers for hard pages (premium proxies, JS rendering). Predictable per-fetch. Driftstack bills concurrent caps regardless of how many actions run inside each session.
Driftstack vs Browserbase
Browserbase is a managed Chromium platform optimized for AI agent workloads — Stagehand integration, a replay viewer for debugging agent runs, monitoring tuned to AI-driven sessions. Pick Browserbase when your agent stack is built around Chromium and your target sites accept desktop Chrome.
Pick Driftstack when the agent needs to look like a real iPhone visitor — same engine, same fingerprints, same touch events, same Core Text rendering. Our optional AI-agent feature works against the same WebKit engine your code drives manually; no Chromium fallback under the hood.
Pricing shape
Browserbase bills browser-hours; idle counts. Driftstack bills concurrent caps; idle within the cap is free. Bring-your-own Anthropic key is supported — no markup on AI usage unless you explicitly opt into bundled billing.
Where Driftstack isn't the fit
When to pick something else.
Desktop-only targets
If your target site is a B2B dashboard or an internal tool that only desktop users hit, an iPhone fingerprint buys you nothing and may attract attention. Browserless or Browserbase are the cleaner picks.
Pure HTML scraping
"Fetch URL, extract data, never interact" is exactly the workload ScrapingBee and similar API-first scrapers price for. For that kind of job Driftstack costs more per page — you'd be paying for browser realism you don't need.
When the proxy pool is the product
If what you're buying is residential / mobile / ISP addresses at scale and the engine is interchangeable, Bright Data or a dedicated proxy vendor will outprice us. Driftstack expects you to bring your own proxy or VPN for traffic to the open internet (your egress).
Try it
Free tier — one profile, manual, perpetual.
The free tier is the simplest way to verify whether the iPhone engine difference matters for your workload. If the answer is no, the comparison above will help you pick the right alternative.