browsertools-mcp

Gasoline MCP vs BrowserTools MCP: A Practical Comparison

Jan 30, 2025

Brenn Hill

Gasoline MCP and BrowserTools MCP take the same basic approach: a Chrome extension passively captures browser telemetry and serves it to AI coding assistants via MCP. You browse normally, and your AI sees what happens — console logs, network errors, exceptions.

But the two tools differ significantly in architecture, features, and dependencies. Here’s a practical breakdown.

Architecture

Gasoline MCP has two components: a Chrome extension and a single Go binary. The extension captures events and sends them to the Go server over a local WebSocket connection. The Go binary handles both the HTTP/WebSocket server and the MCP stdio interface.

BrowserTools MCP has three components: a Chrome extension, a Node.js intermediary server, and a separate MCP server. The extension sends data to the intermediary server, which then relays it to the MCP server. Two server processes instead of one.

Fewer moving parts means fewer things to configure, fewer things to break, and a simpler mental model when debugging your debugging tool.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Gasoline MCP	BrowserTools MCP
Console logs	Yes	Yes
Network errors	Yes	Yes
Network bodies	Yes	No
WebSocket monitoring	Yes	No
DOM queries	Yes	No
Accessibility audit	Yes	Yes (Lighthouse)
Test generation	Yes (Playwright)	No
Screenshots	No	Yes
Lighthouse audits	No	Yes

Gasoline MCP covers more capture categories — network bodies, WebSocket messages, DOM queries, and test generation. BrowserTools MCP offers Lighthouse performance audits and screenshots, which Gasoline MCP does not.

Dependencies

Gasoline MCP ships as a single Go binary with zero runtime dependencies. The binary is roughly 10MB. No Node.js, no node_modules/, no lock files, no supply chain surface area.

npx gasoline-mcp

The npx command downloads the prebuilt binary for your platform. No compilation, no runtime required.

BrowserTools MCP requires Node.js and installs multiple npm packages. The full dependency tree is 150MB or more. Each dependency is a potential point of failure during installation and a potential supply chain risk.

For enterprise environments with strict security policies, the dependency footprint is often the deciding factor.

Privacy

Both tools operate over localhost only — your browser data never leaves your machine.

The difference is in credential handling. Gasoline MCP automatically strips authorization headers, cookies, and other sensitive values from captured network data before exposing it through MCP. This prevents credentials from leaking into AI context windows where they might be echoed back, logged, or included in generated code.

BrowserTools MCP does not strip credentials from captured data. Network headers are passed through as-is, which means auth tokens and session cookies can end up in your AI assistant’s context.

Gasoline MCP also sends zero telemetry and binds exclusively to 127.0.0.1, rejecting non-localhost connections at the TCP level.

WebSocket Monitoring

Gasoline MCP captures WebSocket connections, frames, and message payloads in both directions. BrowserTools MCP does not support WebSocket monitoring.

If you’re building real-time applications — chat systems, trading platforms, collaborative editors, live dashboards — WebSocket traffic is often where the bugs live. Being able to ask your AI assistant “what WebSocket messages were exchanged in the last 30 seconds?” changes how you debug these systems.

Test Generation

Gasoline MCP records browser sessions and generates Playwright test code from them. You interact with your application normally, and Gasoline MCP produces a test that replays those interactions with proper assertions.

BrowserTools MCP does not offer test generation.

Which is better: Gasoline MCP or BrowserTools MCP?

It depends on what you need.

Choose Gasoline MCP if you need:

WebSocket monitoring for real-time applications
Network request and response body capture
DOM querying from your AI assistant
Playwright test generation from browser sessions
Zero runtime dependencies and minimal supply chain risk
Automatic credential stripping for privacy

Choose BrowserTools MCP if you need:

Lighthouse performance audits
Screenshots served through MCP

For most browser debugging workflows with AI assistants, Gasoline MCP covers more ground with less overhead.

Does BrowserTools MCP support WebSocket monitoring?

No. BrowserTools MCP captures console logs, network requests, and can run Lighthouse audits, but it does not monitor WebSocket connections or messages. If your application uses WebSockets, Gasoline MCP is the only passive-capture MCP tool that supports this.

For a broader comparison including Chrome DevTools MCP and other tools, see the full alternatives guide. Ready to try Gasoline MCP? Get started in under a minute.