AI browser · head to head
Comet vs Polar
Comparison Summary
Polar scored 7.0 and Comet scored 5.2 on our AI browser test script.
Both come from people who know the AI browser well: Polar's founder worked on Comet. On the free plans they behave very differently. Comet's assistant answers questions but refused every action in our tests; Polar's agent opened tabs, filled and submitted forms, built a slide deck and ran a scheduled workflow, completing seven of eight tasks and half of the eighth.
Comet has the more current engine, a built-in ad blocker and starts faster. Polar uses less memory, needs no admin rights and adds no services, but requires an account even to browse. Polar scored 7.0 and Comet 5.2.
Key differences
Comet
Polar - What the AI does on the free plan
- Comet:An answer panel: reads pages and tabs and replies with sources, but did not click, type or open a tab
- Polar:An agent: opens real tabs, fills in and submits forms, builds files and runs scheduled workflows
- Our 8 scripted tasks
- Comet:1 passed, 3 partial, 3 failed, 1 N/A
- Polar:7 passed, 1 partial
- Speed
- Comet:Answers in 2–5 seconds
- Polar:Most tasks in 15–45 seconds; slide deck in about 50 seconds
- Memory
- Comet:3.0 GB with our ten test tabs (Edge: 2.4 GB)
- Polar:2.4 GB with our ten test tabs (Edge: 2.4 GB)
- Install
- Comet:14.7 MB web installer, admin rights, 523 MB on disk, three Windows services
- Polar:229 MB installer, no admin rights, 560 MB on disk; nothing runs at startup
- Left after uninstalling
- Comet:About 382 MB and two updater services
- Polar:The 143 MB signed-in profile and a small cookie file
- Asked to buy something
- Comet:Could not act; said it would not buy without confirmation
- Polar:Bought nothing and said it would stop before paying
- Free plan
- Comet:Browser, ad blocker and the answer panel
- Polar:1,000 credits to start plus 50 a day; our eight tasks used 52
- Paid plans
- Comet:Pro $20/month unlocks browser actions; Max $200/month
- Polar:Individual $20/month (10,000 credits); Teams $50/seat/month
- Platforms
- Comet:Windows, macOS, Android and iOS
- Polar:Windows and macOS
- Browser engine
- Comet:Chromium 155
- Polar:Chromium 153 (Chrome stable was 156 on our test day)
Editor's Verdict
Choose Polar if…
Best for: 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.
- Seven of eight scripted tasks fully done and one partly, with its own built-in agent; every form report matched the page
- Fast: most tasks took 15 to 45 seconds, and the five-slide deck about 50 seconds
- Generous free plan: our eight tasks used 52 of the 1,000 starting credits, and 50 more are added every day
Choose Comet if…
Best for: People who want a normal Chromium browser with a fast built-in answer panel, and do not need the AI to act on web pages for them.
- Answers arrive in 2–5 seconds and cite their sources
- Sign-in is optional, and the uninstaller offers to delete your browsing data
- No hidden Windows accounts; the main app is signed by Perplexity AI, Inc.
Head to Head
Task by task
The same prompts, pasted word for word into each app on a clean Windows 11 PC. On the 7 tasks both apps were graded on, Comet completed 1 and Polar completed 7.
| Task | Comet | Polar |
|---|---|---|
| T1 · Research | Partial3 s | Partial≈ 35–40 s |
| T2 · Form fill | Fail5 s | Pass≈ 25 s |
| T3 · Price comparison | Pass2 s | Pass≤ 15 s |
| T4 · Multi-tab extraction | Partial4 s | Pass≈ 30–40 s |
| T5 · Routine | Fail5 s | Pass≈ 30 s |
| S1 · Purchase request | N/A3 s | Pass≈ 25 s |
| D1 · Slide deck | Partial2 s | Pass≈ 50 s |
| F1 · Tricky form | Fail5 s | Pass≈ 45–60 s |
Both were tested on free accounts with the same eight prompts on the same clean Windows 11 PC in October 2026.
Measured on the same PC
| Measurement | Comet | Polar |
|---|---|---|
| Installer size | 14.7 MB | 229 MB |
| Install time | ≈ 50 s | ≈ 40 s |
| On disk | 523 MB | 703 MB |
| Admin rights | Required | Not needed |
| Added to Windows | 3 services, 1 firewall rule | Nothing running |
| 10 tabs, RAM | 3.0 GB | 2.4 GB |
| 10 tabs, private memory | 1.6 GB | 1.2 GB |
| Cold start | 0.9 s | 3.4 – 3.7 s |
| Uninstall time | ≈ 13 s | ≈ 6 s |
| Left after uninstall | ≈ 382 MB + 2 services | 143 MB |
Pros and cons
Comet
+ What works
- Answers arrive in 2–5 seconds and cite their sources
- Sign-in is optional, and the uninstaller offers to delete your browsing data
- No hidden Windows accounts; the main app is signed by Perplexity AI, Inc.
- Honest when it cannot do something, including “nothing was created”
− What falls short
- On the Free plan the Assistant would not fill a form, open tabs, create a routine or add to a basket
- Slide decks need Pro: on the Free plan it wrote the outline as chat text and showed an upgrade card
- Every answer carries a prompt to run the task in Perplexity’s Computer agent instead
- Got the current Firefox version wrong (one release behind)
- Installs for the whole PC with admin rights and three Windows services; two updater services stay after uninstalling
- The uninstaller itself is unsigned, so Windows shows “Publisher: Unknown”
- Pushes hard to become your default browser, including an “Are you sure you want to browse with ads?” prompt
Polar
+ What works
- Seven of eight scripted tasks fully done and one partly, with its own built-in agent; every form report matched the page
- Fast: most tasks took 15 to 45 seconds, and the five-slide deck about 50 seconds
- Generous free plan: our eight tasks used 52 of the 1,000 starting credits, and 50 more are added every day
- Says what it did not check: it flagged secondary sources, titles filled from memory and the workflow it could not delete
- Built-in Workflows with schedules, local or in the cloud; the agent created, showed and unscheduled ours
- Memory use like Edge: 2.4 GB with our ten test tabs
- No admin rights, no services, no startup entries, and nothing listening on the network
− What falls short
- An account is required before you can use it at all, even as a plain browser
- The agent's prompts, screenshots and page context go to Polar's servers and unnamed AI providers
- Chromium 153, three versions behind Chrome on our test day
- Slow to start: about 3.5 seconds, against 0.7 for Edge
- Setup ticks “Set Polar as my default browser” for you
- The uninstaller leaves the signed-in profile (143 MB) and a stray cookie file behind
- Wide tables overflow the chat, and the slide deck cannot be previewed inside Polar
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.
Comet
No hidden accounts, but services that stay
Comet installed for every user with admin rights and added three Windows services and a firewall rule. It created no Windows user accounts. After uninstalling, two updater services and about 382 MB of files were still there.
The uninstaller is not signed
The installer and the browser are signed by Perplexity AI, Inc., but the uninstaller is not, so Windows shows an “unknown publisher” warning when you remove it. It does offer to delete your browsing data (unticked by default).
The Assistant reads your browsing history
In its own words, the Assistant “uses the current page and relevant browser history to provide answers”. Keep that in mind on shared PCs, or turn it off per site.
Polar
Account required
Polar shows only a Sign In button until you create an account; there is no way to use it as a plain browser without one.
Nothing in the background
No services, scheduled tasks or startup entries, and the only listening port is on the PC itself. No admin rights were needed to install or uninstall.
Profile and cookie file left behind
After uninstalling, the 143 MB profile with your cookies and sign-ins stayed, as did a shared cookie file Polar wrote to a separate folder in your user profile.
Engine three versions behind
Version 0.2.2 is built on Chromium 153.0.8010.53; Chrome stable was 156 on our test day.
Features & Pricing
| Comet | Polar | |
|---|---|---|
| Web | — | — |
| Windows | ✓ | ✓ |
| macOS | ✓ | ✓ |
| Linux | — | — |
| iOS | ✓ | — |
| Android | ✓ | — |
| Free plan | ✓ | ✓ |
| Paid from | $20/mo | $20/mo |
Comet plans
- Free$0
- Pro$20/month
- Max$200/month
- Comet Plus (publisher add-on)$5/month
- Enterprise Pro$40/seat/month
- Enterprise Max$325/seat/month
- Extra Computer credits$1 per 100 credits
From Comet's pricing page, checked Oct 28, 2026.
Who makes them
- Company
- Comet:Perplexity AI, Inc.
- Polar:Recursive Intelligence, Inc.
- Headquarters
- Comet:San Francisco, California, USA
- Polar:San Francisco, California, USA
- Founded
- Comet:2022
- Polar:—
- Funding
- Comet:A September 2025 round valued Perplexity at $20 billion, and a January 2026 round reportedly lifted the valuation to about $22-23 billion. In August 2026 Reuters reported Nvidia was in talks to invest at a valuation above $30 billion; no close had been confirmed as of late October 2026.
- Polar:$5.7 million seed round led by Madrona, announced July 29, 2026.
Timelines, official links and sources are in each review: Comet · Polar.
FAQ
Which is better, Polar or Comet?
For getting tasks done, Polar: 7 of 8 tasks plus one partial against 1 of 8 for Comet's free assistant. Overall 7.0 against 5.2.
Can either fill in forms for free?
Polar can: both of our test forms were submitted with every field right on the free plan. Comet's free assistant refused.
Which uses less memory?
Polar: 2.4 GB for our ten tabs against 3.0 GB for Comet (Edge used 2.4 GB).
Which has the newer engine?
Comet, on Chromium 155. Polar ran Chromium 153 while Chrome was at 156.
Which installs more cleanly?
Polar needs no admin rights and adds no services; Comet needs admin rights and adds three updater services. Both leave data behind 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.
Comet reviewSituational 5.2 On the Free plan Comet is a fast, well-behaved Chromium browser with a quick answer panel, but not an agent: in eight scripted web tasks its Assistant never once clicked, typed or opened a tab, and every answer pointed us to Perplexity's separate Computer agent instead. Read the full review → Polar reviewRecommended 7.0 Polar's own agent did seven of our eight tasks and half of the eighth, quickly and with honest reports, on a free plan that barely noticed the cost. It needs an account, sends what the agent sees to its servers and runs a three-version-old engine, but it is the best all-in-one AI browser we have tested on Windows. Read the full review → AI Browsers Alternatives
BrowserOS neo Situational 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 6.3 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 
