16MB vs 1.2GB — Benchmarking 5 AI Browser Automation Tools

I was using Claude Code for browser automation and found myself stuck choosing between tools. There are five candidates, each with a completely different approach. I installed all of them and ran 10 tests - turns out the best choice depends entirely on your use case. TL;DR: For auth management, go with playwright-CLI. For an agent operation backbone, agent-browser. For autonomous natural-language control, browser-use. For high-volume crawling, Lightpanda. For production infrastructure, steel-browser. This article focuses on CLI-mode comparisons.