head to head · open source
Steel vs skills
Steel has 7,668 GitHub stars, 982 forks, 68 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. skills has 5,963 stars, 297 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 27 days ago. Steel leads on adoption by 29% (7,668 vs 5,963 stars). Steel is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0; skills is written in Python under MIT. Steel has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, skills 5%. Steel was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Steel | skills | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.7K | ★ 6.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 982 | ⑂ 297 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Steel if
- You weight community size — 7.7K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick skills if
- You want the skills feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and skills fits your workflow better
About Steel
Steel is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed browser API written in TypeScript that gives AI agents and applications cloud browser sessions, so teams can automate the web without building browser infrastructure from scratch.
read the full Steel overview →
About skills
BrowserAct Skills is a browser automation CLI built for AI agents, distributed as an open source Python project under the MIT license. It lives in the agent infrastructure ecosystem, alongside tooling for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and other agent clients, and it is catalogued here under Data Extraction and Web Scraping. The project has gathered roughly 5,900 stars and 293 forks since it was published about a year ago, with a small open issue count and an active last push.
read the full skills overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Steel or skills more popular?
Steel has 7,668 GitHub stars and skills has 5,963. Steel has the larger community by that measure.
Are Steel and skills free?
Both are open source. Steel is licensed under Apache-2.0 and skills under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Steel and skills?
Steel is written in TypeScript and skills in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Steel or skills?
Choose Steel if you want the larger community (7,668 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose skills if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.