Best for operations and engineering teams that must automate portals with no API, such as invoice downloads, form filling and data entry. It replaces brittle selector scripts and manual portal work, though it still needs specific prompts and step limits. Built by a Y Combinator Summer 2023 team, it lists SOC 2 Type 2 status on its trust center.
What changed
Skyvern is an open-source AI agent that automates browser workflows on any website, with 23.2k GitHub stars and a hosted MCP server of 117 tools. It reads each page, lets an LLM pick the next click or keystroke, and handles logins, two-factor codes and CAPTCHAs, either as a cloud service or self-hosted under the AGPL licence.
Maker: Skyvern · Autonomy: semi autonomous · Maturity: GA
Underlying models: Skyvern 3.0 engine, OpenAI CUA (Enterprise), Anthropic CUA (Enterprise)
About Skyvern
Skyvern is an AI agent that operates a real browser for you. It comes from a San Francisco team that went through Y Combinator in Summer 2023, led by founders Suchintan Singh and Shuchang Zheng, who is CTO. The site footer names Ikonomos Inc. as the company behind it. You give it a goal and a starting page, and it works out the clicks itself, and that planning step is what separates it from a recorder or a scraper.
Every step runs the same loop: Skyvern takes a screenshot, reads the page's interactive elements, asks an LLM for the next action, runs it in Chromium through Playwright, and checks whether the goal is met. Jobs are saved as agents made of blocks for logging in, extracting data, downloading files, looping and waiting, and they run by hand, on a schedule or through the API. The engine is selectable per block, from Skyvern's own to the computer-use agents of OpenAI and Anthropic on enterprise accounts.
The documented use cases are the unglamorous kind: downloading invoices from vendor portals behind logins, filling forms across many sites, pulling prices or records from sites with no API, and browser testing. Skyvern names healthcare, insurance, fintech and HR tech as target industries, which fits the compliance status on its trust center. A hosted MCP server lets Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, ChatGPT and OpenAI Codex drive it from chat, with Claude, Hermes Agent and OpenClaw also listed as clients. Results can go to Google Sheets, and connectors link it to Zapier, Make, n8n and Clay.
Skyvern sits between two neighbours. Browserbase sells the cloud browsers that your own agent code drives, MultiOn is a closed-source browser-native agent with a free Chrome extension, and Manus is a general-purpose agent for research and documents. Skyvern's pitch is the middle ground: a repeatable, credentialed workflow runner that you can also self-host. Browse the general-purpose agent directory before you commit credits.
Pricing
Free costs $0 and includes 5,000 credits as a one-time grant that does not reset, with 1 concurrent run. Hobby is $29 a month for 30,000 credits and 10 concurrent runs, Pro is $149 a month for 150,000 credits and 25 concurrent runs, and Enterprise is quoted. One credit equals $0.001, and a Skyvern SMS number for two-factor codes adds $10 a month per number on Pro. These USD prices were read from skyvern.com/pricing and the billing docs on 13 October 2026. The two pages disagree on estimated actions per plan, and on Enterprise concurrency (100 on the pricing page, unlimited in the docs), so the credit rates in the cost FAQ are the safer basis. [Browserbase](/hub/tools/browserbase) prices browser hours instead of actions if you want to compare metering.
Key Features
- Goal-driven browser loop: Reads each page from a screenshot plus its interactive elements and lets an LLM pick the next click, keystroke or extraction, so the agent does not depend on fixed selectors.
- Copilot and Studio: Copilot turns a chat description into a saved agent of editable blocks that you can run by hand, on a schedule or from code.
- Logins, two-factor codes and CAPTCHAs: Stores logins, cards and secrets encrypted, reads one-time codes from authenticator apps, email or text, and solves CAPTCHAs inside the run.
- Hosted MCP server: Exposes 117 browser and automation tools at api.skyvern.com to Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, ChatGPT and Claude, with browser sign-in instead of a pasted API key.
- SDKs and self-hosting: Python and TypeScript SDKs call the API, and the open-source code runs on Docker Compose or Kubernetes with OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama or any OpenAI-compatible model.
- Run records and webhooks: Each run keeps a browser recording, a screenshot per action and the reasoning behind each action, and a signed webhook posts the result to your system when it finishes.
- Schedules and sessions: Schedules repeat on a cron expression or an interval no closer than five minutes, and a browser session can stay open up to six hours so a login carries between runs.
Strengths
- For sites you do not control, it moves maintenance from selectors to prompts, which suits teams that now patch Playwright or Selenium scripts every time a page changes.
- Its trust center lists SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA as compliant, the status that procurement teams in healthcare and insurance usually ask for before a pilot.
- Reasoning is stored per action, so a failed run can be debugged from the recording instead of guessed at.
- The changelog shows dated weekly releases through the week of September 28, 2026, so fixes arrive quickly.
Weaknesses
- Calls to run_task through the API and SDK default to the legacy Skyvern 1.0 engine, while the app recommends 3.0, so code-first users must pass the engine explicitly.
- Self-hosted installs leave out Skyvern Cloud's proxy network and CAPTCHA solving, and the README says the anti-bot measures stay in the managed cloud.
- The AGPL-3.0 licence is strong copyleft, so embedding the code in a hosted product needs legal review.
- Its README reports 64.4% on WebBench, a benchmark Skyvern built with Halluminate, while Skyvern's own write-up names Anthropic's Sonnet 3.7 CUA as the state of the art, so treat the claim as vendor-run.
- G2 shows no reviews for Skyvern as of 13 October 2026, so there is no independent user feedback to weigh yet.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Skyvern cost in 2026?
Skyvern lists Free at $0, Hobby at $29 a month, Pro at $149 a month and Enterprise on quote, all in USD. Usage is metered in credits worth $0.001 each: an action costs 30 credits ($0.03), a cached replay without the AI costs 15, browser uptime costs 200 an hour ($0.20), and a one-time code read costs 10. A short login already takes several actions, so price a real workflow before choosing a plan.
How much can Skyvern do without a human?
After you set a goal it acts step by step until the goal is met, a step limit is reached, or it decides the goal cannot be reached on that site, which ends the run as terminated. A person only enters where you add a Human Interaction Block, which pauses the run until someone responds, and the pricing page lists that block under Enterprise. In practice that makes it semi-autonomous: you define the goal, the credentials and the step cap, then review the recording afterwards.
Which tools compete with Skyvern in 2026?
MultiOn is the closest hosted browser agent, but it is closed source and its API is quoted through sales. Browserbase rents cloud browsers to your own agent code instead of supplying the agent. Manus covers broader research and document work rather than repeatable portal workflows.
What separates Skyvern from MultiOn?
Skyvern publishes self-serve USD plans and its AGPL code, so you can start free and self-host. MultiOn is closed source and quotes API pricing through sales, though its Chrome extension and mobile app are free. Pick MultiOn for a personal agent in your own browser, and Skyvern for scheduled workflows with stored credentials.
How do you get started with Skyvern?
Sign in at app.skyvern.com and describe the job to Copilot, which builds and tests an agent, or copy an API key and run a task with the Python or TypeScript SDK. To use it from a coding assistant, add the hosted MCP server and sign in through your browser. Self-hosting needs Python 3.11 to 3.14 and an LLM key, and the skyvern quickstart command writes the setup.
Top Alternatives
- MultiOn: Pick MultiOn for a closed-source agent with a free Chrome extension; pick Skyvern for scheduled, credentialed workflows you can also self-host.
- Browserbase: Pick Browserbase when your agent code exists and only hosted browsers are missing; pick Skyvern when the agent loop and workflow builder should come included.
- Manus: Pick Manus for open-ended research and document work from one prompt; pick Skyvern for repeatable portal tasks with stored logins and run recordings.