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.
Facts from each vendor's own public pages. Where we found nothing, the cell says so.
Start here
What an anti-detect browser is — and how Driftstack differs
Websites read many small signals from a visitor's browser — screen size, fonts, how it draws graphics, how it plays audio — and together they describe the browser and the device it presents. An anti-detect browser is usually a desktop browser changed to report a different identity, such as an iPhone's.
Those tools change what a desktop browser reports — an iPhone identity string here, a patched-over browser detail there. The identity says "iPhone" while the layers underneath (graphics fingerprints, timing, error messages) still come from the desktop engine, so pages are drawn and run by a different engine than the one in an iPhone visitor's Safari.
Driftstack is not a phone either: it runs on Macs, set up to present an iPhone model, its screen and touch input. The difference is the starting point. Instead of patching another browser, it runs a build of Apple's WebKit. 7 iPhone models, from the iPhone 13 to the 15 Plus, in Safari 26.4–26.6.1. We compare what websites can measure against real iPhones. The table below compares that approach with four popular platforms, and names the workloads where each of them is the better pick.
The Looks like a real iPhone? row is where the approaches differ most. When a website checks how a browser draws graphics (its canvas and WebGL fingerprints), Driftstack's results are checked against what real iPhones produce. A tool that generates a fresh identity for every session returns values no real iPhone shares. 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 | Chrome; Firefox and WebKit through Playwright | Managed cloud Chrome ("Browser API", formerly Scraping Browser) | Chromium (Puppeteer) | Chromium / Stagehand |
| Primary device target | iPhone 13 → 15 Plus (16 device profiles) in Safari 26.4–26.6.1; pick one, or get a random one | Chrome, Firefox and WebKit; its docs also list supported mobile devices | Desktop Chrome with a simulated mobile identity | Desktop Chrome | Desktop Chrome |
| How the browser identity is set | In the browser engine, built from source — nothing patched over while the page runs | Stealth routes over the Chrome DevTools Protocol | Proprietary anti-detection layer | Stealth headers + rotating proxies | Stealth Mode by plan: Free none; Developer and Startup Basic; Scale Advanced |
| Looks like a real iPhone? | Safari’s own engine; device identities measured on real iPhones | No iPhone identity (mobile = Android Chrome) | User-agent and screen override (sample sets an iPhone user agent) | Desktop / mobile switch; no iPhone named | Mobile / Tablet presets; no iPhone named |
| Pricing model | Flat, by how many profiles run at once; session hours never billed. Run as many sessions as you like, up to your plan's number at the same time. | Per unit (up to 30 seconds of browser time each) | Per GB of traffic (no per-request fee) | Per API call (request credits) | Per browser-hour, plus per-call search / fetch and per-GB proxies |
| Billing surprises | None — one flat price within your session limit | Billed in units of up to 30 seconds of browser time per connection | Data-transfer (GB) charges can spike | JavaScript-heavy pages cost more credits | Billed by the minute, one-minute minimum per session |
| Customer-controlled proxies | Bring your own: SOCKS5 proxy on any plan, or an OpenVPN or WireGuard VPN on paid plans — attached per profile. A VPN or UDP-capable proxy carries WebRTC and HTTP/3 too. Your session's traffic leaves only through your proxy or VPN, never around it | Per-session HTTP/HTTPS proxy config | Their proxy network is the product | Their rotating proxies, or your own proxy | Per-session HTTP/HTTPS proxy config |
| Data residency | Account data, servers and database in the EU; sessions on Macs hosted in the US or the Netherlands; uploaded files on cloud storage that can replicate outside the EU | US / EU regions | Not on the pages we read | Not on the pages we read | US / EU regions |
| Point-and-click app for human operators | Yes — desktop app, on every plan | API-first (no desktop app) | Browser product + dashboard | API-first (no desktop app) | Replay viewer + dashboard |
| SDK languages | TypeScript · Python · Go | Any (REST + Puppeteer) | Playwright · Selenium (Node.js, Python, Java, C#); Puppeteer (Node.js) | Any (REST) | TypeScript · Python · Go |
| Self-hosted option | Yes — three plans (source-code escrow on Enterprise) | Yes: self-hosted core (SSPL or commercial licence) | Not on the pages we read | Not on the pages we read | No |
| Trial path | Free trial · no card · app and API | Free tier with usage cap | Free tier: 5K credits a month, no card | 1,000 free credits | Free plan: 1 browser hour, 15-minute sessions |
Competitor details from their public pages, October 2026. Spotted a change? Email [email protected].
Side-by-side
When each is the right answer.
We name the workload each platform fits. If your work doesn't fit Driftstack, we'll tell you which tool does.
Driftstack vs Browserless
Browserless is a "Browsers as a Service" platform — you rent browsers in their cloud and drive them with the standard developer tools (Puppeteer / Playwright); its core can be self-hosted (free for non-commercial use). Pick Browserless when the target site renders fine on desktop Chrome and you don't need iOS-specific signals.
Pick Driftstack when the site treats iPhone Safari differently — its identity string, touch-screen events, how Apple renders fonts — and you need what an iPhone visitor gets, not what desktop Chrome gets.
Pricing shape
Browserless bills in units of up to 30 seconds of browser time per connection; a longer-running session uses another unit every 30 seconds. Driftstack bills a flat rate for how many sessions run at once, and never by the hour. A session left unused closes on its own instead of running up a bill.
Driftstack vs Bright Data
Bright Data's core asset is its proxy network — residential, ISP, mobile, datacenter pools at large scale. Its Browser API (formerly Scraping Browser) is a managed cloud Chrome layered on top. Pick Bright Data when what matters is which IP the request comes from, not which browser engine renders the page.
Pick Driftstack when what matters is the engine — Apple's WebKit, with what a website can measure checked against real iPhones. Bring the proxy network you already pay for — over SOCKS5, or on paid plans OpenVPN or WireGuard. We don't sell proxies and we never charge for bandwidth: your traffic runs through your own proxy or VPN.
Pricing shape
Bright Data bills its browser product per GB of traffic. Driftstack bills a flat rate for how many sessions run at once; your traffic runs over your own proxy or VPN, 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, and you can also bring your own proxy. 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 extra charges for harder pages (premium proxies, JavaScript rendering). Predictable per fetch. Driftstack bills a flat rate for how many sessions run at once, 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's work needs iPhone Safari — Safari's engine family, fingerprints checked against real iPhones, touch events and Apple's font rendering. Our optional AI agent drives the same iPhone Safari browser your code does — Apple's WebKit, not desktop Chrome.
Pricing shape
Browserbase bills browser time by the minute, with search, fetch and proxy traffic billed on top. Driftstack bills a flat rate for how many sessions run at once, and never by the hour. A session left unused closes on its own instead of running up a bill.
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.
Try it
A free trial, no card needed.
The 7-day trial is the simplest way to verify whether the iPhone engine difference matters for your workload.