Steel

Steel is an open-source browser API. Run it yourself for free as steel, or use Steel Cloud as steel_cloud.

• steel drives your own Steel container.
• steel_cloud opens a hosted session per read and releases it, even on failure. It is paid.
• Point steel_cloud at any Steel API with FRANKENSURF_STEEL_CLOUD_URL.

Set up

Self-hosted:

bash scripts/start-steel.sh
export FRANKENSURF_STEEL_URL=http://127.0.0.1:3100

Steel Cloud: set FRANKENSURF_STEEL_API_KEY.

Use it

It joins the default route by itself once set up. To use it on its own:

Python

page = await web.read(
    "https://example.com/products/2231",
    provider="steel",
)

CLI

frankensurf read https://example.com/products/2231 --provider steel

MCP

{ "tool": "read", "arguments": { "url": "https://example.com/products/2231", "provider": "steel" } }

Details

Property	Value
Provider ID	steel
Rung	T2
Cost	Free
Tested	Live (self-hosted and through steel_cloud)
Docs	steel.dev