Performance, with the context attached
Compare timing, memory, runtime footprint, and reliability across five browser configurations.
Timings include controller round trips. Lower values mean less time, memory, or disk space.
Scroll the table horizontally to compare all five configurations.
| Metric / unit | BrusterWebKitGTK | PlaywrightHeadless Shell | Playwrightfull Chrome | Puppeteerfull Chrome | agent-browserfull Chrome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Startup | |||||
| Launch → first loaded page (ms) | 30,707.8[26,669.1–30,718.0] | 451.3[446.2–491.9] | 628.7[607.1–782.5] | 473.3[464.4–598.8] | 714.2[672.7–836.5] |
| Startup → ready / blank-page setup (ms) | 30,144.8[26,105.1–30,310.6] | 435.0[431.0–472.2] | 581.2[543.0–728.7] | 445.4[426.0–486.2] | 648.0[616.1–712.9] |
| First navigation after setup (ms) | 564.1[82.7–569.1] | 15.4[12.4–18.5] | 37.5[26.1–239.2] | 26.7[23.2–154.5] | 71.7[50.4–123.6] |
| Navigation | |||||
| Warm tiny-page navigation (ms) | 7.3[2.9–8.4] | 8.6[6.6–15.9] | 14.4[10.4–34.3] | 16.0[13.0–28.5] | 31.4[18.8–70.5] |
| Large-page navigation (ms) | 24.5[24.1–25.3] | 27.7[18.3–42.2] | 33.4[22.5–52.5] | 32.6[28.3–34.6] | 66.0[60.3–83.4] |
| Image-page navigation (ms) | 114.2[109.6–116.8] | 114.6[113.3–127.0] | 118.2[116.1–131.0] | 119.8[117.7–127.7] | 125.2[121.5–132.1] |
| Extraction and screenshots | |||||
| Tiny DOM extraction (ms) | 0.8[0.6–5.2] | 2.7[1.9–5.9] | 6.2[2.6–33.0] | 2.3[1.0–8.3] | 4.8[2.9–16.8] |
| Large DOM extraction, object return (ms) | 15.1[10.9–24.2] | 80.1[59.6–119.5] | 84.0[61.0–122.3] | 23.7[14.4–42.6] | 26.2[21.0–34.4] |
| Large DOM extraction, JSON-string return (ms) | 15.2[8.0–23.9] | 8.4[7.1–27.4] | 12.7[7.1–30.8] | 17.5[6.7–33.4] | 10.6[9.2–21.4] |
| PNG screenshot (ms) | 29.0[28.1–29.9] | 31.5[28.7–52.1] | 40.3[30.5–57.9] | 64.3[45.1–84.1] | 58.1[48.2–72.8] |
| Memory and runtime footprint | |||||
| Idle total PSS, including display (MiB) | 250.8[245.6–252.7] | 324.7[322.9–326.2] | 507.6[506.1–509.2] | 418.8[417.6–421.2] | 516.8[513.5–521.5] |
| Idle process RSS, excluding display (MiB) | 371.9[368.3–372.7] | 597.3[595.5–600.2] | 1,174.0[1,166.9–1,178.1] | 1,064.3[1,049.6–1,067.0] | 1,589.7[1,580.1–1,600.0] |
| Installed runtime files, lower bound (MB) | 427.9 | 475.5 | 630.8 | 644.7 | 483.2 |
| Reliability | |||||
| Sessions with failures (including cleanup) | 0/10 | 10/10 | 10/10 | 0/10 | 0/10 |
Ranges show observed variation, not confidence intervals. Memory is idle usage; installed runtime sizes are lower bounds. Read the measurement method.
The machine and exact runtime versions behind this measurement.
Measurement conditions, accounting boundaries, and comparison guidance.
Ten sessions per configuration by default, with rotating order and fresh browser profiles. Values are medians [observed minimum–maximum], not confidence intervals. Startup and first navigation have one sample per session; repeated-operation timings pool all iterations; memory uses the median of three idle readings per session.
Startup ends at the adapter ready event, or after blank-page/viewport setup for agent-browser. The combined launch-to-first-page measurement includes both setup and the first navigation. Xvfb is already running: its startup time is excluded, but its memory is included. 1280×800 viewport; localhost fixtures; no-store HTTP responses; navigation waits for load. OS filesystem caches are not flushed. Identical extraction JavaScript and cross-tool result hashes. Timings include controller round trips; agent-browser includes its per-command native CLI.
Memory covers the complete owned process forest (including detached daemons and helpers), plus Xvfb for Bruster. PSS apportions shared pages; summed RSS double-counts them. Memory is small-page idle usage, not peak usage. Native snapshots have different semantics and are retained in the raw artifacts rather than ranked as equal work. MB = 1,000,000 bytes; MiB = 1,048,576 bytes.
Installed-file inventories are lower bounds including browser/engine, linked libraries, observed mapped files and Node where required; unobserved OS resources may add more. GitHub-hosted runner hardware and OS packages can change: compare the configurations within a run and inspect provenance before interpreting trends.
These probes run after the timed workloads. Failed attempts remain counted even when a later retry succeeds.
Scroll horizontally for fault, cleanup, and recovery details.
| Configuration | Sessions with failures | Fault-probe failures | Shutdown / cleanup failures | Successful 100 ms retries |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BrusterWebKitGTK | 0/10 | None | None | 0 |
| PlaywrightHeadless Shell | 10/10 |
| None | 10 |
| Playwrightfull Chrome | 10/10 |
| None | 10 |
| Puppeteerfull Chrome | 0/10 | None | None | 0 |
| agent-browserfull Chrome | 0/10 | None | None | 0 |
Download the measurements, runtime inventory, and resolved dependency files for this run.
brustermeasurement.jsonJSON ↓summary.jsonJSON ↓samples.jsonJSON ↓footprint.jsonJSON ↓report.mdMarkdown ↓package.jsonJSON ↓package-lock.jsonJSON ↓{
"started_utc": "2026-10-27T22:32:51.970062+00:00",
"platform": "Linux-7.0.0-1017-azure-x86_64-with-glibc2.39",
"os": {
"NAME": "Ubuntu",
"ID": "ubuntu",
"PRETTY_NAME": "Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS",
"VERSION_ID": "24.04",
"VERSION": "24.04.5 LTS (Noble Numbat)",
"VERSION_CODENAME": "noble",
"ID_LIKE": "debian",
"HOME_URL": "https://www.ubuntu.com/",
"SUPPORT_URL": "https://help.ubuntu.com/",
"BUG_REPORT_URL": "https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/",
"PRIVACY_POLICY_URL": "https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/privacy-policy",
"UBUNTU_CODENAME": "noble",
"LOGO": "ubuntu-logo"
},
"node": "v26.12.1",
"chrome": "Google Chrome for Testing 156.0.8078.4",
"headless_shell": "Google Chrome for Testing 156.0.8078.4",
"cpu_count": 4,
"cpu_model": "AMD EPYC 9V74 80-Core Processor",
"mem_total_kib": 16367524,
"runner_image": {
"ImageOS": "ubuntu24",
"ImageVersion": "20261026.354.1",
"RUNNER_ARCH": "X64"
},
"rustc": "rustc 1.99.1 (58cf8f9c3 2026-10-13)",
"webkitgtk": "2.52.6",
"packages": {
"playwright-core": "1.64.1",
"puppeteer-core": "25.16.0",
"agent-browser": "0.40.0"
},
"bruster_bytes": 1455632,
"bruster_sha256": "48adb34cc3956a14fb05c4b614387dbc8fd90b623b22c3bc0f299a6ae234dc3b",
"chrome_sha256": "377a9fc07b495c3b8d0ab8ec1fdfd153641759f9756fea34d8dfce4de82f5025",
"headless_shell_sha256": "4fa61f0ba0b4f89b7bec242c32ca16d3bccf69dbfef0651924a9ba8fede5f9d6",
"rounds": 10,
"iterations": 10,
"common_extraction_js": "(() => ({\n title: document.title,\n elements: Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('h1,h2,h3,p,li,a,input,button,select,textarea'))\n .filter(e => { const r = e.getBoundingClientRect(); return r.width > 0 && r.height > 0; })\n .map(e => ({tag: e.tagName.toLowerCase(),\n name: (e.getAttribute('aria-label') || e.getAttribute('placeholder') || e.textContent || '').trim(),\n href: e.getAttribute('href'), value: 'value' in e ? e.value : null}))\n}))()",
"harness_sha256": {
"bench_compare.py": "f1476d7cf9f694d55356c6212549680f001471b55c5f91df36447465fc82bedb",
"bench_competitor_driver.mjs": "c9bb792d8d3a1a60f1b0f5fe6a1775e865ca715858f3b2da13ba2162f75077fe",
"bench_audit.py": "df91d7a203077227c82fc6730033498ea20badaf519c6dd8f6bf10b1c6ae006c"
},
"package_lock_sha256": "210628238686d22733351fad6e50abaee12565f3664605aa8ac740ad9931716e",
"args": {
"bruster": "/home/runner/work/bruster/bruster/target/release/bruster",
"node": "/opt/hostedtoolcache/node/26.12.1/x64/bin/node",
"chrome": "/home/runner/work/_temp/benchmark-browsers/chromium-1248/chrome-linux64/chrome",
"shell": "/home/runner/work/_temp/benchmark-browsers/chromium_headless_shell-1248/chrome-headless-shell-linux64/chrome-headless-shell",
"deps": "/home/runner/work/_temp/benchmark-deps",
"output": "/home/runner/work/_temp/benchmark-results",
"rounds": 10,
"iterations": 10,
"tools": [
"bruster",
"playwright",
"puppeteer",
"agent-browser",
"playwright-shell"
]
},
"finished_utc": "2026-10-27T22:41:51.009959+00:00"
}