| FMRS | 66 / 100 · C | 78 / 100 · B | 76 / 100 · B |
|---|
| Reliability | 9 / 20 | 13 / 20 | 13 / 20 |
|---|
| Security and permissions | 11 / 20 | 12 / 20 | 12 / 20 |
|---|
| Maintenance | 15 / 20 | 18 / 20 | 17 / 20 |
|---|
| Documentation | 17 / 20 | 18 / 20 | 17 / 20 |
|---|
| Setup experience | 14 / 20 | 17 / 20 | 17 / 20 |
|---|
| Best for | - Developers who need browser automation from Claude Desktop, VS Code, and similar clients
- Users doing web testing and scraping
| - Scenarios where an AI assistant needs to actually drive a browser to complete a task
- Web automation testing and end-to-end verification
| - Frontend developers who want AI-assisted web debugging and performance analysis
- Scenarios that need browser automation and performance diagnostics in the same tool
|
|---|
| Not for | - Environments requiring strict sandboxing that disallow AI-controlled browsers
- Claude Desktop users needing HTTP/SSE mode (Claude Desktop currently requires stdio mode)
| - Simple static-text scraping (a lightweight scraper is a better fit)
- Environments sensitive to browser resource usage that can't run a full browser engine
| - Cases that only need to scrape page text without performance analysis or complex interaction (a lighter scraping tool is a better fit)
|
|---|
| Required permissions | - Runs real browsers (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit) locally
- Automatically downloads and installs browser binaries on first use
- Writes log files to ~/playwright-mcp-server.log
- Binds a local port in HTTP mode (default 8931)
| - Requires installing and running a browser engine (Chromium/Firefox/WebKit) locally or on a server
- browser_navigate can visit any URL; browser_evaluate can run arbitrary JavaScript in the page context
| - Requires a local Chrome browser instance to run
- navigate_page can visit any URL; type_text/fill_form and similar tools can enter arbitrary content into the page
|
|---|
| Risks and side effects | - AI can execute JavaScript in a real browser, potentially accessing and manipulating sensitive web content
- Automatic browser downloads consume disk space and bandwidth
- HTTP mode binds to localhost only; exposing it via SSH tunnels still requires caution
| - browser_evaluate executing arbitrary scripts carries risk if a malicious page is visited — restrict to trusted sites or an isolated environment
- Long-running browser instances consume significant memory and CPU
| - Browser automation tools can access and manipulate the content of open pages — use only in a trusted development/test environment
- performance_start_trace and similar tracing tools continuously record browser activity — avoid leaving them running on pages containing sensitive information
|
|---|
| Supported clients | Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cline, Cursor IDE, VS Code | Claude Desktop, Claude Code, VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, JetBrains, Zed, Cline, Amp, Kiro, LM Studio, Antigravity, Goose | Claude Code, VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, JetBrains, Cline, Amp, Kiro, Antigravity |
|---|
| Tools | 1 | 10 | 22 |
|---|