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# Browser Use Alternative: Free, Deterministic, No Tokens Per Run

April 9, 2026 · Leon Ting · 6 min read

Browser Use has 78K GitHub stars and a growing community. It made AI browser automation accessible. But if you've used it in production, you've hit the same wall everyone hits: it calls the LLM on every single run.

A 10-step workflow costs $0.50–$2.00 per execution. At 100 runs/day, that's $50–$200/day. At production scale, $3,600/month. And that's before you factor in the 60–95% reliability floor — same page, same task, different results each time.

If you're looking for a Browser Use alternative that's free at runtime, deterministic, and self-healing, that's exactly what Tap does.

## Why People Search for Browser Use Alternatives

The browser-use GitHub discussions tell the story:

> "I have a recurring task meant for webscraping to be done every 5 min. I do not want to use too many tokens. Is it possible to repeat the tasks?"

> — browser-use #494

> "Running the default task took 12 minutes on M3 Max, 36GB RAM."

> — browser-use #957

> "My business scenario requires solidifying the agent's execution process into a tool."

> — browser-use #4519

Three pain points, one root cause: Browser Use interprets every run from scratch. It never compiles what it learns into a reusable program.

## Tap: The Compiler Model

Tap takes a different approach. AI inspects the website once, then compiles what it learns into a `.plan.json` program. That program runs forever — no AI, no tokens, no variance.

    # First time: AI inspects and compiles (~5 min, one-time cost)
    $ tap capture https://news.ycombinator.com hackernews/hot --intent "top stories"
    ✓ Deterministic template hit — no AI needed (RSS feed detected)
    ✓ Saved: ~/.tap/plans/hackernews/hot.plan.json

    # Every time after: instant, deterministic, $0
    $ tap hackernews/hot
    1. Show HN: I built a...     342 points  |  128 comments
    2. Why X is better than Y    287 points  |   94 comments
    ...

The program is plain JavaScript on your disk. No cloud dependency, no lock-in. Cancel and it keeps running forever.

## Side-by-Side Comparison

| Browser Use | Tap
--- | --- | ---
AI cost per run | $0.50–$2.00 | $0 (after first compile)
Reliability | 60–95% (varies per run) | 100% deterministic
Speed | 12 min per task (M3 Max) | <1s per run
Breakage detection | None (silent empty arrays) | tap verify + per-tap CEL snapshot_equivalent
Self-repair | No | Re-run capture against same site/name → AI patch
Output format | Variable (AI-generated) | Structured (same schema every time)
Offline capable | No | Yes (zero AI at runtime)
MCP native | No | Yes (3 meta verbs + per-tap auto-projection)

## When Browser Use Is the Right Tool

Browser Use is the right choice when you need one-off, ad-hoc browser interactions — things you'll never repeat. If you're exploring a website for the first time, testing a flow, or doing something once, the interpreter model makes sense.

But for anything you'll run more than once, the economics flip. The second run should be free. The hundredth run should be free. Programs beat prompts for repeatable automation.

## Migration Is Straightforward

If you're already using Browser Use, here's how to transition:

1. Install Tap — `npx -y @taprun/cli --version` (zero install)
2. Identify your recurring tasks — any Browser Use workflow you run more than once
3. Capture a tap — `tap capture <url> <site>/<name> --intent "..."`; deterministic templates handle RSS / JSON-LD / OpenAPI / OpenGraph for free, AI fills the long tail (BYOK)
4. Verify and save — Tap lints the plan, persists to `~/.tap/plans/<site>/<name>.plan.json`, and writes the first Snapshot on next `tap verify`
5. Run forever — `tap <site>/<name>` anytime, $0 per run

70+ community taps are ready to run with zero capture needed — GitHub trending, Reddit front page, Hacker News, arXiv search, and more.

## Cost Reality Check

Let's say you have 10 recurring browser automation tasks, each running 10 times/day:

Metric | Browser Use | Tap
--- | --- | ---
Runs per day | 100 | 100
Cost per run | $0.50–$2.00 | $0
Daily cost | $50–$200 | $0
Monthly cost | $1,500–$6,000 | $0
Forge cost (one-time) | N/A | ~$0.16 per tap

The first run costs about the same. Every run after is free.

### Try it free

    $ npx -y @taprun/cli --version
    $ tap capture https://news.ycombinator.com hackernews/hot --intent "top stories"  # deterministic template hits
    $ tap hackernews/hot              # $0. Forever.