{"slug": "stagehand", "name": "Stagehand", "category": "productivity", "category_name": "Productivity", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 6, "warners": 1, "score": 2.765, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-15", "latest": "2026-09-19", "why": "check out https://docs.stagehand.dev/v3/best-practices/caching", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 0, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "check out https://docs.stagehand.dev/v3/best-practices/caching", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/browserbase/stagehand", "official_url": "https://www.stagehand.dev/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Stagehand"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 797342848, "item_id": 49833928, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49833928", "by": "MiguelG719", "date": "2026-09-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Try https://stagehand.dev/dino ;)", "excerpt": "Try https://stagehand.dev/dino ;)", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation demo", "switched_from": "", "story": "For Computer Use, the harness matters as much as the model"}, {"id": 796547856, "item_id": 49784241, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49784241", "by": "wittydeveloper", "date": "2026-09-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Stagehand is subtly faster for local use cases", "excerpt": "Does \"agent-based\" here mean a CLI/Coding agent or software-level agents you built? I'd say that Stagehand is subtly faster for local use cases (batching, in-extension design) while covering both CLI (via https://browse.sh) and framework-level use, whereas agent-browser is CLI-only.", "context": "", "use_case": "local browser agent automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "We made Playwright 2x faster and 80% more token efficient"}, {"id": 796279761, "item_id": 49767485, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49767485", "by": "Phemist", "date": "2026-09-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks very interesting!", "excerpt": "I've been using Playwright a lot and also hit on the friction between playwright's web testing scope (e.g. no 1st class support for \"muted\" start-up of browsers, jeez) and usage for task automation all the time. This looks very interesting! How does stagehand deal with complex http/websocket request/response and or console message filtering? https://docs.stagehand.dev/v4/reference/page#on E.g. I would like a script t", "context": "", "use_case": "browser task automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "We made Playwright 2x faster and 80% more token efficient"}, {"id": 755862704, "item_id": 47241419, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241419", "by": "causal", "date": "2026-03-03", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the chatbot it engages can quickly direct me to the documentation I'm looking for", "excerpt": "I have found that chatbots embedded in some spaces can be useful, e.g. docs. Stagehand for example embeds a little query form at the bottom of their docs page, and I've found the chatbot it engages can quickly direct me to the documentation I'm looking for: https://docs.stagehand.dev/v3/first-steps/introduction", "context": "", "use_case": "Documentation chatbot", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't Make Me Talk to Your Chatbot"}, {"id": 748740962, "item_id": 46796310, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46796310", "by": "thisnick", "date": "2026-01-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "tools like Stagehand use the accessibility tree instead of screenshots", "excerpt": "*Edit: Correct link is https://github.com/thisnick/agent-rdp * (submitted wrong URL, can't change it) Hey HN! I built this after weeks of frustration with Claude's computer use for insurance workflow automation. The problems I kept hitting: 1. Scrolling kills you \u2014 To read a multi-page doc, the AI screenshots, scrolls, screenshots again. Each scroll burns an API call. A 10-page document eats half your context window ", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Agent-Rdp \u2013 CLI for AI Agents to Control Windows via Remote Desktop"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 765323146, "item_id": 47832696, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47832696", "by": "sneefle", "date": "2026-04-20", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I patched Stagehand with 'bun patch' to swap the logger to a passthrough.", "excerpt": "Solo founder here. I sent 127 job applications last year and got 3 callbacks. My ATS score on my own resume came back at 34% on roles I was actually qualified for. That's the origin. AI Applyd does three things: 1. Scores your resume against a job description using the same keyword / skill / semantic extraction that Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, and Workday run. You get a number and the specific missing keywords. 2. Rewr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: AI Applyd \u2013 a bot that applies to jobs for you"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["browser automation", "browser automation demo", "local browser agent automation", "browser task automation", "documentation chatbot", "turning agent actions into deterministic scripts"], "compared": [{"slug": "playwright", "name": "Playwright", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 797340176, "item_id": 49833761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49833761", "by": "MiguelG719", "date": "2026-09-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The eval harness is a CLI you can run yourself", "excerpt": "Hi HN, Over the last 2 years, we observed computer use models improving at a rapid pace and saturating benchmarks. This new benchmark replaces Online-Mind2Web with our own Browserbase Benchmark v2 that better represents the complex tasks that browser agents face in the real world. It runs against 23 models (frontier and open-weight) and 9 harnesses (Claude Code to LangChain Deep Agents) on accuracy, speed, and cost. ", "context": "", "use_case": "browser agent benchmarking", "switched_from": "", "story": "For Computer Use, the harness matters as much as the model"}, {"id": 796295936, "item_id": 49768496, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49768496", "by": "MiguelG719", "date": "2026-09-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "We also just added Jev support", "excerpt": "We also just added Jev support https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand/pull/2952 On the act/extract/observe evals it shows promising results being extremely efficient - act: 4.3x faster, 97% fewer LLM calls. Pass rate: 97.5% -> 98.3%. - heldout: 4.1x faster, 78% fewer LLM calls. Pass rate: 87.5% -> 97.5%. - observe: 11.1x faster, 69% fewer LLM calls. Pass rate: 75.0% -> 83.3%. - extract: 8.7x faster, 75% fewer LLM c", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "We made Playwright 2x faster and 80% more token efficient"}, {"id": 796106752, "item_id": 49756672, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49756672", "by": "wittydeveloper", "date": "2026-09-18", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a brand new architecture making it 2x faster than Playwright and 80% more token efficient", "excerpt": "We built Stagehand 2 years ago (24k stars and 4M monthly npm downloads) and recently fixed its biggest flaw: round-trip latency. Every action performed requires a round trip between your script and the browser (short when running locally but increased when running in the cloud). We also saw multiple posts complaining about the eager token appetite of Playwright MCP. For this reason, we rebuilt Stagehand from the grou", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation for AI agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "We made Playwright 2x faster and 80% more token efficient"}, {"id": 733915776, "item_id": 45869736, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45869736", "by": "pkiv", "date": "2025-11-09", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Stagehand is our open source project", "excerpt": "Stagehand is our open source project, but the company behind it is called Browserbase - https://browserbase.com/ where we run headless browser infrastructure as a service. So no interest at this point, Browserbase drives the revenue that funds Stagehand!", "context": "", "use_case": "Browser automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"}, {"id": 733910096, "item_id": 45869381, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45869381", "by": "pkiv", "date": "2025-11-09", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we just released v3, which is a total rewrite", "excerpt": "I'm working on rebuilding Playwright from the ground up, but focused on automation and self healing using LLMs. It's called Stagehand (https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand) and we just released v3, which is a total rewrite.", "context": "", "use_case": "LLM-driven browser automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? 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I'd say that Stagehand is subtly faster for local use cases (batching, in-extension design) while covering both CLI (via https://browse.sh) and framework-level use, whereas agent-browser is CLI-only.", "context": "", "use_case": "local browser agent automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "We made Playwright 2x faster and 80% more token efficient"}, {"id": 796279761, "item_id": 49767485, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49767485", "by": "Phemist", "date": "2026-09-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This looks very interesting!", "excerpt": "I've been using Playwright a lot and also hit on the friction between playwright's web testing scope (e.g. no 1st class support for \"muted\" start-up of browsers, jeez) and usage for task automation all the time. This looks very interesting! How does stagehand deal with complex http/websocket request/response and or console message filtering? https://docs.stagehand.dev/v4/reference/page#on E.g. I would like a script t", "context": "", "use_case": "browser task automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "We made Playwright 2x faster and 80% more token efficient"}, {"id": 765323146, "item_id": 47832696, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47832696", "by": "sneefle", "date": "2026-04-20", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I patched Stagehand with 'bun patch' to swap the logger to a passthrough.", "excerpt": "Solo founder here. I sent 127 job applications last year and got 3 callbacks. My ATS score on my own resume came back at 34% on roles I was actually qualified for. That's the origin. AI Applyd does three things: 1. Scores your resume against a job description using the same keyword / skill / semantic extraction that Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, and Workday run. You get a number and the specific missing keywords. 2. Rewr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: AI Applyd \u2013 a bot that applies to jobs for you"}, {"id": 764594048, "item_id": 47787128, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47787128", "by": "yehia2amer", "date": "2026-04-15", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "how does it differ from https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand", "excerpt": "how does it differ from https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand ?", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Libretto \u2013 Making AI browser automations deterministic"}, {"id": 755862704, "item_id": 47241419, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47241419", "by": "causal", "date": "2026-03-03", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the chatbot it engages can quickly direct me to the documentation I'm looking for", "excerpt": "I have found that chatbots embedded in some spaces can be useful, e.g. docs. Stagehand for example embeds a little query form at the bottom of their docs page, and I've found the chatbot it engages can quickly direct me to the documentation I'm looking for: https://docs.stagehand.dev/v3/first-steps/introduction", "context": "", "use_case": "Documentation chatbot", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't Make Me Talk to Your Chatbot"}, {"id": 748740962, "item_id": 46796310, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46796310", "by": "thisnick", "date": "2026-01-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "tools like Stagehand use the accessibility tree instead of screenshots", "excerpt": "*Edit: Correct link is https://github.com/thisnick/agent-rdp * (submitted wrong URL, can't change it) Hey HN! I built this after weeks of frustration with Claude's computer use for insurance workflow automation. The problems I kept hitting: 1. Scrolling kills you \u2014 To read a multi-page doc, the AI screenshots, scrolls, screenshots again. Each scroll burns an API call. A 10-page document eats half your context window ", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Agent-Rdp \u2013 CLI for AI Agents to Control Windows via Remote Desktop"}, {"id": 742086288, "item_id": 46380393, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46380393", "by": "pkiv", "date": "2025-12-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'd love for you to give Stagehand a try", "excerpt": "If you're already using Playwright, I'd love for you to give Stagehand a try (https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand) - it has compatible-ish API, but built for automation, not testing.", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Vibium \u2013 Browser automation for AI and humans, by Selenium's creator"}, {"id": 737057760, "item_id": 46066110, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066110", "by": "MiguelG719", "date": "2025-11-26", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "check out https://docs.stagehand.dev/v3/best-practices/caching", "excerpt": "> but then you want to capture that in code anyway for repeated use. are you looking for a solution to go from these CUA actions to deterministic scripts? check out https://docs.stagehand.dev/v3/best-practices/caching", "context": "", "use_case": "turning agent actions into deterministic scripts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Fara-7B: An efficient agentic model for computer use"}, {"id": 735088240, "item_id": 45943015, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45943015", "by": "hackgician", "date": "2025-11-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "might be worth building on top of that", "excerpt": "hey! cool project, feels very similar to [stagehand](https://github.com/browserbase/stagehand), although stagehand doesn't have much in the way of e2e testing. might be worth building on top of that though since playwright MCP can overwhelm an agent with tool overload", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built E2E Test Agent \u2013 describe tests in plain English,AI executes it"}]}