Steel.dev is an open-source browser API that makes it easy to build AI apps and agents that interact with the web. Instead of building automation infrastructure from scratch, you can focus on your AI application while Steel handles the complexity.
Under the hood, it manages sessions, pages, and browser processes, allowing you to perform complex browsing tasks programmatically without any of the headaches:
Full Browser Control: Uses Puppeteer and CDP for complete control over Chrome instances -- allowing you to connect using Puppeteer, Playwright, or Selenium.
Session Management: Maintains browser state, cookies, and local storage across requests
Proxy Support: Built-in proxy chain management for IP rotation
Extension Support: Load custom Chrome extensions for enhanced functionality
Debugging Tools: Built-in request logging and a UI to view/debug sessions with
Anti-Detection: Includes stealth plugins and fingerprint management
Resource Management: Automatic cleanup and browser lifecycle management
Browser Tools: Exposes APIs to quick convert pages to markdown, readability, screenshots, or PDFs.
For detailed API documentation and examples, check out our API reference or explore the Swagger UI directly at http://0.0.0.0:3000/documentation.
Steel is in public beta and evolving every day. Your suggestions, ideas, and reported bugs help us immensely. Do not hesitate to join in the conversation on Discord or raise a GitHub issue. We read everything, respond to most, and love you.
The easiest way to get started with Steel is by creating a Steel Cloud account. Otherwise, you can deploy this Steel browser instance to a cloud provider or run it locally.
⚡ Quick Deploy
If you're looking to deploy to a cloud provider, we've got you covered.
Deployment methods
Link
Pre-built Docker Image (combined API + UI)
1-click deploy to Railway
1-click deploy to Render
💻 Running Locally
Docker
The simplest way to deploy/run a Steel browser instance locally is to run the pre-built Docker image:
# Pull and run the Docker image
docker run -p 3000:3000 -p 9223:9223 ghcr.io/steel-dev/steel-browser
You can now create sessions, scrape pages, take screenshots, and more. Jump to the Usage section for some quick examples on how you can do that.
Alternatively, you can run the API and UI separately with docker compose:
docker compose up
For Mac Silicon users, you will need to pass this env flag to the Docker compose command to run the images on the correct platform:
DOCKER_DEFAULT_PLATFORM=linux/arm64 docker compose up
Quickstart for Contributors
When developing locally, you will need to run the docker-compose.dev.yml file instead of the default docker-compose.yml file so that your local changes are reflected. Doing this will build the Docker images from the api and ui directories and run the server and UI on port 3000 and 5173 respectively.
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up
You will also need to run it with --build to ensure the Docker images are re-built every time you make changes:
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build
If you run on a custom host, create a .env file (see docs/DEVELOPMENT_SETUP.md for variables) or modify the environment variables used by docker-compose.dev.yml to use your host.
Node.js
Alternatively, if you have Node.js and Chrome installed, you can run both the server and the UI directly:
npm install
npm run dev
This will also start the Steel server on port 3000 and the UI on port 5173.
Make sure you have the Chrome executable installed and in one of these paths:
If you have a custom Chrome executable or a different path, you can set the CHROME_EXECUTABLE_PATH environment variable to the path of your Chrome executable:
export CHROME_EXECUTABLE_PATH=/path/to/your/chrome
npm run dev
In these examples, we assume your custom Steel API endpoint is http://localhost:3000.
The full REST OpenAPI documentation can be found on our site and on your local Steel instance at http://localhost:3000/documentation.
Using the SDKs
If you prefer to use the our Python and Node SDKs, you can install the steel-sdk package for Node or Python.
These SDKs are built on top of the REST API and provide a more convenient way to interact with the Steel browser API. They are fully typed, and are compatible with both Steel Cloud and self-hosted Steel instances (changeable using the baseURL option on Node and base_url on Python).
The /sessions endpoint lets you relaunch the browser with custom options or extensions (e.g. with a custom proxy) and also reset the browser state. Perfect for complex, stateful workflows that need fine-grained control.
Once you have a session, you can use the session ID or the root URL to interact with the browser. To do this, you will need to use Puppeteer or Playwright. You can find some examples of how to use Puppeteer and Playwright with Steel in the docs below:
import Steel from 'steel-sdk';
const client = new Steel({
baseURL: "http://localhost:3000", // Custom API Base URL override
});
(async () => {
try {
// Create a new browser session with current API fields
const session = await client.sessions.create({
blockAds: true,
proxyUrl: "user:pass@host:port", // optional
dimensions: { width: 1280, height: 800 }, // optional
});
console.log("Created session with ID:", session.id);
} catch (error) {
console.error("Error creating session:", error);
}
})();
Creating a Session using the Python SDK
import os
from steel import Steel
client = Steel(
base_url="http://localhost:3000", # Custom API Base URL override
)
try:
# Create a new browser session with custom options
session = client.sessions.create(
block_ads=True,
proxy_url="user:pass@host:port", # optional
dimensions={"width": 1280, "height": 800}, # optional
)
print("Created session with ID:", session.id)
except Exception as e:
print("Error creating session:", e)
Creating a Session using Curl
# Launch a new browser session
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/v1/sessions \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"proxyUrl": "user:pass@host:port",
"blockAds": true,
"dimensions": { "width": 1280, "height": 800 }
}'
Selenium Sessions
Note: This integration does not support all the features of the CDP-based browser sessions API.
For teams with existing Selenium workflows, the Steel browser provides a drop-in replacement that adds enhanced features while maintaining compatibility. You can simply use the isSelenium option to create a Selenium session:
// Using the Node SDK
const session = await client.sessions.create({ isSelenium: true });
# Using the Python SDK
session = client.sessions.create(is_selenium=True)
Using Curl
# Launch a Selenium session
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/v1/sessions \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"isSelenium": true
}'
The Selenium API is fully compatible with Selenium's WebDriver protocol, so you can use any existing Selenium clients to connect to the Steel browser. For more details on using Selenium with Steel, refer to the Selenium Docs.
Quick Actions API
The /scrape, /screenshot, and /pdf endpoints let you quickly extract clean, well-formatted data from any webpage using the running Steel server. Ideal for simple, read-only, on-demand jobs:
Scrape a Web Page
Extract the HTML content of a web page.
# Example using the Actions API
curl -X POST http://0.0.0.0:3000/v1/scrape \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"url": "https://example.com",
"delay": 1000
}'
Take a Screenshot
Take a screenshot of a web page.
# Example using the Actions API
curl -X POST http://0.0.0.0:3000/v1/screenshot \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"url": "https://example.com",
"fullPage": true
}' --output screenshot.png
Download a PDF
Download a PDF of a web page.
# Example using the Actions API
curl -X POST http://0.0.0.0:3000/v1/pdf \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"url": "https://example.com"
}' --output output.pdf
Get involved
Steel browser is an open-source project, and we welcome contributions!
