AI browser · head to head
BrowserOS neo vs Strawberry
BrowserOS neo
SituationalAhead on 3 of 6 scored axes
Read the full BrowserOS neo review →Comparison Summary
BrowserOS neo scored 6.3 and Strawberry scored 6.2 on our AI browser test script.
Both did nearly everything we asked. Strawberry's own agent completed seven of eight tasks with one partly done; BrowserOS neo, driven by Claude, completed all eight. The difference is where the AI lives: Strawberry includes it, with 500 free credits a month, while neo needs you to connect and pay for your own agent.
On safety, neo behaved better when asked to buy something: it added nothing and said it would confirm first, where Strawberry clicked “Add to basket” without asking. On the install, neo needs no admin rights and creates no Windows accounts; Strawberry adds two hidden accounts that survive uninstalling. Neo, however, listens on two ports on every network. BrowserOS neo scored 6.3 and Strawberry 6.2.
Key differences
BrowserOS neo
Strawberry - What the AI does on the free plan
- BrowserOS neo:No AI of its own: an outside agent (we used Claude) drives it over MCP and can open tabs, click, type and submit
- Strawberry:An agent: opens real tabs, fills in and submits forms, runs scheduled routines and builds files
- Our 8 scripted tasks
- BrowserOS neo:8 passed, with Claude Opus 5.5 driving it
- Strawberry:7 passed, 1 partial
- Speed
- BrowserOS neo:Most tasks in 30–50 seconds; slide deck in about 3 minutes
- Strawberry:Web tasks in 29–52 seconds; slide deck in 7 min 29 s
- Memory
- BrowserOS neo:2.9 GB with our ten test tabs (Edge: 2.4 GB); highest CPU while loading
- Strawberry:2.2 GB after sign-in; 5.3 GB with our ten test tabs (Edge: 2.4 GB)
- Install
- BrowserOS neo:138 MB installer, no admin rights, 965 MB on disk; listens on two ports on all networks
- Strawberry:348 MB installer, 638 MB on disk; an admin-level helper adds two hidden Windows accounts
- Left after uninstalling
- BrowserOS neo:About 752 MB of profile data and session recordings, plus its entry in Claude's settings
- Strawberry:About 565 MB and both hidden Windows accounts
- Asked to buy something
- BrowserOS neo:Bought nothing and said it would confirm the item and total first
- Strawberry:No: it clicked “Add to basket” without asking
- Free plan
- BrowserOS neo:The browser is free and open source; the AI agent is paid separately
- Strawberry:500 credits a month; our whole test used 48
- Paid plans
- BrowserOS neo:None for neo; your agent's plan or API costs (we used a paid Claude plan)
- Strawberry:Intern $20/month (6,000 credits) up to Full-Time $250/month
- Platforms
- BrowserOS neo:Windows and macOS (Linux listed on the site)
- Strawberry:Windows and macOS
- Browser engine
- BrowserOS neo:Chromium 155 (Chrome stable was 156 on our test day)
- Strawberry:Chromium (current at test time)
Editor's Verdict
Choose BrowserOS neo if…
Best for: People who already use Claude Code, Codex or Cursor and want their agent to work in a real, separate browser they can watch and replay.
- With Claude connected, all eight scripted tasks were completed, and every report matched what the page showed
- Each task runs in its own named tab group, so you can watch the agent work without it touching your tabs
- Every agent session is recorded locally and can be replayed from the Cockpit
Choose Strawberry if…
Best for: Hands-on users who want a browser agent for research, form filling and data gathering and are comfortable reviewing what it installs.
- Did 7 of our 8 scripted tasks in full: five web tasks in under a minute each (29–52 s), a sourced slide deck and an 11-field tricky form
- Works in real, visible browser tabs and keeps a step-by-step trace you can expand and review
- Reports honestly: it said "no order was placed" and "not stated" instead of inventing results
Head to Head
Task by task
The same prompts, pasted word for word into each app on a clean Windows 11 PC. On the 8 tasks both apps were graded on, BrowserOS neo completed 8 and Strawberry completed 7.
| Task | BrowserOS neo | Strawberry |
|---|---|---|
| T1 · Research | Pass≈ 35–50 s | Pass≈ 50 s |
| T2 · Form fill | Pass≈ 35–45 s | Pass≈ 52 s |
| T3 · Price comparison | Pass≈ 15–20 s | Pass34 s |
| T4 · Multi-tab extraction | Pass≈ 35–50 s | Pass37 s |
| T5 · Routine | Pass≈ 30–45 s | Pass29 s |
| S1 · Purchase request | Pass≈ 35 s | Partial57 s |
| D1 · Slide deck | Pass≈ 3 min | Pass7 min 29 s |
| F1 · Tricky form | Pass≈ 1 min 20 s | Pass1 min 4 s |
BrowserOS neo has no AI of its own, so its tasks were run by Claude Desktop (Opus 5.5) driving neo over MCP; the other browser used its own built-in assistant. All tests ran on the same clean Windows 11 PC with the same eight prompts in October 2026.
Measured on the same PC
| Measurement | BrowserOS neo | Strawberry |
|---|---|---|
| Installer size | 138 MB | 348 MB |
| Install time | ≈ 25 s | ≈ 2 min 15 s |
| On disk | 965 MB | 638 MB |
| Time per task | 15 s – 3 min | 29–52 s |
| 10 tabs, RAM | 2.9 GB | 5.3 GB |
| 10 tabs, private memory | 1.8 GB | 2.4 GB |
| Cold start | 1.3 s | 1.7 s |
| Uninstall time | < 6 s | 14.5 s |
| Left after uninstall | 752 MB | ≈ 565 MB + 2 accounts |
Pros and cons
BrowserOS neo
+ What works
- With Claude connected, all eight scripted tasks were completed, and every report matched what the page showed
- Each task runs in its own named tab group, so you can watch the agent work without it touching your tabs
- Every agent session is recorded locally and can be replayed from the Cockpit
- One-click connection for Claude Code; works with Codex, Cursor and other MCP clients
- No admin rights, no services, no scheduled tasks; installs in about 25 seconds and uninstalls in under 6
- Free and open source (AGPL-3.0)
− What falls short
- No built-in AI at all: without an outside agent it is a plain Chromium browser
- You need a separate AI agent and its plan or API costs; our results reflect Claude Opus 5.5 as much as the browser
- The browser listens on two ports on every network interface, which made Windows Firewall ask for network access on first launch
- Telemetry with a random install ID is on by default
- Highest CPU load we have measured while opening our ten test tabs (1.84 cores) and 2.9 GB of memory, against 2.4 GB for Edge
- Leaves 752 MB of profile data and session recordings with the default uninstall, plus its connection entry in Claude's settings
- No built-in ad blocker
Strawberry
+ What works
- Did 7 of our 8 scripted tasks in full: five web tasks in under a minute each (29–52 s), a sourced slide deck and an 11-field tricky form
- Works in real, visible browser tabs and keeps a step-by-step trace you can expand and review
- Reports honestly: it said "no order was placed" and "not stated" instead of inventing results
- Answers arrive as clean tables with Copy and Export buttons
- The Free plan was enough for our whole test: 48 credits used, no card asked
− What falls short
- Creates two enabled local Windows accounts (StrawberrySbxOffline/Online) via an admin "sandbox helper" and does not remove them on uninstall
- Filled in the tester’s name, job title, company and city during onboarding without being given them
- Heavy on memory: 5.3 GB for ten tabs against 2.4 GB in Edge on the same PC, and 1.7 s to open a window against 0.7 s
- About 565 MB of data and cached installer left on disk after uninstalling, and the uninstaller offers no option to delete your data
- Long onboarding (about nine screens) with nudges to import your browser and give a five-minute interview
- Treated “buy it” as permission to act: it clicked “Add to basket” without asking first
Privacy and security
What we saw on our own test PC. Each review also lists what the vendor states about data handling, training and certifications.
BrowserOS neo
Listens on every network interface
The browser opened ports 9010 and 9011 on all network interfaces, not only on the PC itself, so Windows Firewall asked to allow it on public and private networks. We clicked Cancel, which keeps it blocked.
Your pages go to the agent you connect
Every page the agent reads is sent to its AI provider. Use an agent and plan whose data terms you accept, and think twice before signing it in to banking or work accounts.
Recordings stay on disk
Every agent session is recorded locally; 72 MB for our test. With the default uninstall the 752 MB profile, recordings included, stays on the PC.
No admin rights, nothing that runs at startup
The installer and uninstaller need no admin rights and add no services, scheduled tasks or startup entries. The installer is signed by Felafax, Inc.
Engine one version behind
Version 155.0.8315.26 is based on Chromium 155; Chrome stable was 156 on our test day. BrowserOS updates itself in the background.
Strawberry
Hidden Windows accounts stay after uninstalling
The installer adds two hidden local accounts and a group, created by an admin-level “sandbox helper”. Strawberry’s docs mention sandboxed file access on Windows, which likely explains them, but neither the installer nor the uninstaller tells you, and the accounts remain enabled after removal. See the clean-up steps above.
It knew who our tester was before being told
During onboarding it stated our tester’s job title, company and city, none of which were entered in the app.
Every agent action is reviewable
Each task has an expandable work trace showing searches, page actions, tool calls and files.
Features & Pricing
| BrowserOS neo | Strawberry | |
|---|---|---|
| Web | — | — |
| Windows | ✓ | ✓ |
| macOS | ✓ | ✓ |
| Linux | ✓ | — |
| iOS | — | — |
| Android | — | — |
| Free plan | ✓ | ✓ |
| Paid from | Not checked | $20/mo |
BrowserOS neo plans
- BrowserOS neoFree
- Your AI agentSeparate
- Ultrafast modeNot launched
From BrowserOS neo's pricing page, checked Oct 28, 2026.
Strawberry plans
- Free$0
- Intern$20 / month
- Part-Time$85 / month
- Full-Time$250 / month
- TeamPer seat
- EnterpriseCustom
- Top-ups$0.01 / credit
From Strawberry's pricing page, checked Oct 27, 2026.
Cost for your team
- Strawberry$1,200per year
- BrowserOS neo—no paid plan
Cheapest paid plan × seats × 12, at list price. Annual discounts and volume deals not included. BrowserOS neo and Strawberry also have a free plan.
Who makes them
- Company
- BrowserOS neo:BrowserOS (Felafax, Inc.)
- Strawberry:Strawberry Browser Inc.
- Headquarters
- BrowserOS neo:Redwood City and San Francisco, California, USA
- Strawberry:Stockholm, Sweden
- Founded
- BrowserOS neo:2024
- Strawberry:—
- Funding
- BrowserOS neo:Backed by Y Combinator (Summer 2024 batch); no further funding has been announced.
- Strawberry:$6M seed round (October 2025) led by General Catalyst and EQT Ventures, with the founders of Lovable, Hugging Face and Supabase also investing
Timelines, official links and sources are in each review: BrowserOS neo · Strawberry.
FAQ
Which is better, BrowserOS neo or Strawberry?
For results they are close: 8 of 8 tasks for neo with Claude, 7 of 8 plus one partial for Strawberry on its own. Strawberry is the all-in-one choice; neo suits people who already pay for an AI agent. Overall 6.3 against 6.2.
Do I need a separate AI subscription?
For BrowserOS neo, yes: it has no AI of its own. Strawberry includes its agent, with 500 free credits a month that covered our test.
Which asked before buying?
BrowserOS neo with Claude bought nothing and said it would confirm first. Strawberry clicked “Add to basket” without asking.
Which uses less memory?
BrowserOS neo: 2.9 GB for our ten tabs against 5.3 GB for Strawberry (Edge used 2.4 GB).
Which installs more cleanly?
BrowserOS neo needs no admin rights and adds no services or accounts, but listens on two network ports. Strawberry adds two hidden Windows accounts that stay after uninstalling.
Read the full reviews
This page compares the two side by side. Each full review has the complete test log, every screenshot, the scoring notes, pricing, security and company details.
BrowserOS neo reviewSituational 6.3 BrowserOS neo has no AI of its own: it is a browser built for an outside agent to drive. With Claude connected it completed all eight of our tasks and reported every result accurately, but that score belongs to the pair, and you need a paid AI agent and some setup to get there. Read the full review → Strawberry reviewSituational 6.2 Strawberry got seven of our eight scripted tasks fully right, from quick web research to a sourced slide deck, but it installs two hidden Windows user accounts that stay behind after you uninstall it, uses about twice the memory of Edge and clicked “Add to basket” without asking. Capable agent, worrying footprint. Read the full review → AI Browsers Alternatives
Polar Recommended People who want an AI browser that fills forms, opens tabs, builds files and runs scheduled tasks on its own, without paying for or setting up a separate agent 7.0 Read reviewReview 
Dia Situational People who want accurate, sourced answers across their tabs and quick slide decks, and prefer an assistant that asks before it acts 6.3 Read reviewReview 
