Stateless browser sessions
Kitesurf is built as an ephemeral browser that exists only for the duration of a task, which fits one-shot automation and bursty agent workloads.
Kitesurf
Freemium
Kitesurf is Cloudflare’s stateless browser for AI agents and automation workflows. Built to run on Workers, it handles page rendering, screenshots, and HTML extraction while using less CPU and memory than Chromium for common agentic tasks.
What is Kitesurf?
Kitesurf is Cloudflare's stateless browser for AI agents and automation workflows. It runs on top of Workers and is designed around the needs of agentic browsing rather than the full feature set of a human-facing desktop browser.
Cloudflare positions Kitesurf as a lighter alternative to Chromium for tasks such as screenshots and HTML extraction. The main trade-off is lower CPU and memory use in exchange for slower wall time in some cases and rendering that is not pixel-perfect.
What can Kitesurf do?
Lower resource use for common tasks
For screenshots and HTML extraction, Cloudflare reports significantly lower CPU and memory use than Chromium, helping reduce resource demand when scaling many sessions.
Browser Run CDP support
Kitesurf can be selected on the Browser Run CDP endpoint, so existing Puppeteer, Playwright, chrome-remote-interface, and other CDP-speaking agents can use it by adding browser=kitesurf.
Quick Actions support
Kitesurf also works with Browser Run Quick Actions, allowing tasks such as screenshot generation or content extraction without building a full browser automation flow.
Public playground for compatibility checks
The playground lets users enter a URL and see how Kitesurf renders it before wiring it into code, which helps confirm whether a site behaves as expected.
Web-platform standards coverage
Cloudflare says Kitesurf is tested against Web Platform Tests and that its coverage is expanding, with strong coverage in areas such as DOM, HTML, selection, SVG, encoding, CORS, and XHR.
Use Cases
“AI agents that need lightweight page rendering”
Use Kitesurf when an agent needs to load and interact with pages but does not require a full desktop browser experience.
“One-shot extraction and screenshot workflows”
Kitesurf is suitable for quick tasks that need a page snapshot or extracted HTML, especially when the workflow can use a Quick Action endpoint.
“Burst workloads with many short-lived sessions”
Teams running many independent browser sessions can use Kitesurf to keep memory and CPU usage lower across a large number of ephemeral tasks.
“Browser compatibility testing on specific pages”
The public playground can be used to test whether a URL renders correctly before adding it to an automation or agent workflow.
“Existing CDP-based automation”
Because Kitesurf works through the CDP endpoint, existing browser automation setups can opt in without changing tools, only the browser parameter.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I use Kitesurf in Browser Run?
Add browser=kitesurf to a Browser Run CDP endpoint or to a Quick Action endpoint. Cloudflare provides examples for both connection methods.
Which automation tools can work with Kitesurf?
Cloudflare says existing tools that speak CDP already work, including Puppeteer, Playwright, chrome-remote-interface, and AI agents that use MCP and CDP.
What kinds of tasks is Kitesurf best for?
It is aimed at AI agents and automation that need page rendering, screenshots, or HTML extraction, especially when lower CPU and memory use matter more than full browser features.
What are the main limitations of Kitesurf?
Cloudflare says it is not yet suitable for video, WebGL, real TLS fingerprint negotiation for bot challenges, or long-running authenticated sessions that rely on persistent state.
Can I test a site before using it in production?
Yes. Cloudflare offers a public playground where you can enter a URL, inspect how it renders, and view console and network activity while testing compatibility.
Quick Facts
- Category
- Developer Tool
- Platform
- Cloudflare Browser Run / Workers
- Primary users
- AI agents and automation workflows
- Browser mode
- Stateless browser
- Endpoint support
- CDP and Quick Actions
- Source domain
- developers.cloudflare.com
Kitesurf Traffic Analysis
Traffic data is for reference only.
- Domain Rating
- 94
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