BrowserAct Reviews

Browser automation is needed in many situations. Though there are numerous ways to get it rolling: self-hosted or cloud and ai or selectors-based software. All those approaches can be handy in some cases, while pretty useless in others. So one has to understand what's the use case for them.
What I needed is a straightforward API/webhooks point to send tasks to predefined AI browser agent tasks. I have some selector-based zenno scenarios and they work great! But still, as soon as the website changes they have to be updated and sometimes that results in hours of the functionality down.
My tests with Browseract are fully satisfying. The product lacks some extended features like hard-coded loops and persistent browser instances. Still, those are on their roadmap and the team has been very helpful and fast in their support. As with the majority of the AP deals, you can get a very promising software for a fraction of the market cost. You will have to wait for some needed features to be released,(which rather means, you just adapt your tasks so they're doable in the current software state so they're not fully optimized but still work) but in the end you are rewarded.
Thank you

I tried the AI side of things but each time it ran, it delivered a different set of results/errors...I mean it would get step 1 and 2 correct and fail on step 3, so i'd re-prompt step 3 and then step 2 would fall over before it got to the amended step 3.

So...checked out some reviews where the response was to use the 'workflow' approach. Fien i thought, but trying to understand how to work it is beyond me (with 30 years of coding most things). No usable help docs, no login, fields called 'name' when perhaps a url is required...here's an excerpt from their "quick start guide' ...i hope it makes sense to someone on here:

Quick Start Guide
Core Principle: For an easy start, run tasks first, then optimize based on the gap between results and expectations.

Step 1: Direct Start
Go to the Run module, enter your user prompt, and start the Agent
If you find the Agent's task results differ from your expectations, proceed to the next step
Step 2: Identify Problems (Define the Gap)
Problem Type

Typical Symptoms

Specific Examples

Step Errors/Redundancy

Invalid clicks, repetitive operations, retry loops

Repeatedly clicking the same product on Amazon listing pages, getting stuck in endless loops

Extraction Errors

Missing data, incorrect data

Required product "name/price/rating" fields missing or content clearly abnormal

Output Format Errors

Wrong file format, incorrect order

Need "name/price/rating" order but CSV exports as "price/name/rating"

Step 3: Optimize System Instructions (Condition-Requirement-Constraint)
Instruction Structure:
Condition (When is this triggered?)
Define the scenario clearly, e.g., "When accessing Amazon..."
Requirement (How to solve it?)
Clearly define steps and output, e.g., "①Load all products→②Extract name/price→③Output CSV file"
Constraint (Optional - What absolutely cannot be done?)
Define limitations and solutions, e.g., "Prohibited from clicking ads."
Step 4: Complete Practical Examples
Example 1: Amazon Product Data Extraction Agent
Initial Run (No System Instructions)

So...it's beaten me totally :(

Once you join their Discord server, you'll notice that new features are announced there at regular intervals. You get the feeling that there are people behind this product who are serious about it and are on their way to developing a robust and easy-to-use tool for web scraping. I'm not saying that everything is self-explanatory, but with a little effort, I was able to cleanly extract the information from a blog. With further improvements being implemented on an ongoing basis, you get the feeling that you've put your faith in the right team.

First, I want to give credit to Maggie; she always does her best to support everything possible. Secondly, Browser Act is the best automation tool for scraping, researching, and data sourcing that I've come across. Thank you, team, and keep up the good work.

I try a lot of products on Appsumo, and this one seems more thought out than most. Excited to use it moving forward!