Show HN: Ember – Lightweight headless browser for AI agents (17MB idle)

Ember, a lightweight open-source headless browser for AI agents, launches at just 17 MB idle, significantly smaller than alternatives like Chromium-based tools. It requires no Docker or API keys, supporting scraping, search, crawling, and interactive browser control via a single pip install. The tool aims to make web automation accessible on low-resource devices like VPS, laptops, or Raspberry Pis.

███████╗███╗ ███╗██████╗ ███████╗██████╗ ██╔════╝████╗ ████║██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔══██╗ █████╗ ██╔████╔██║██████╔╝█████╗ ██████╔╝ ██╔══╝ ██║╚██╔╝██║██╔══██╗██╔══╝ ██╔══██╗ ███████╗██║ ╚═╝ ██║██████╔╝███████╗██║ ██║ ╚══════╝╚═╝ ╚═╝╚═════╝ ╚══════╝╚═╝ ╚═╝ Open source, lightweight headless browser for AI agents. pip install ember-browser No Docker. No API key to start. Most web tools for agents ship with Chromium ~281 MB or require Docker just to get started. We needed something an agent could use on a VPS, a laptop, or a Raspberry Pi without thinking about it. ember runs at ~17 MB idle. It decides whether a page needs a browser — you just pass it a URL. | ember | Crawl4AI | Firecrawl OSS | Playwright | | |---|---|---|---|---| | Setup | pip install | pip install | Docker + Redis + Node | pip + browser install | | Package size | ~54 MB | ~200–350 MB | Thin client only | ~47 MB | | Browser binary | Lightpanda ~12 MB | Chromium ~281 MB | Chromium ~281 MB | Chromium ~281 MB | | Docker required | No | No | Yes | No | | API key required | No | No | No | No | | MCP server | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | | Search built-in | Yes | No | Yes | No | | Zero-infra self-host | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | pip install ember-browser ember version verify install ember start the interactive session ember url https://example.com or run a one-shot command ember serve start the REST API ember with no arguments opens a persistent session. Commands and a save guide are shown on startup — no need to type help first. ███████╗███╗ ███╗██████╗ ███████╗██████╗ ██╔════╝████╗ ████║██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔══██╗ █████╗ ██╔████╔██║██████╔╝█████╗ ██████╔╝ ██╔══╝ ██║╚██╔╝██║██╔══██╗██╔══╝ ██╔══██╗ ███████╗██║ ╚═╝ ██║██████╔╝███████╗██║ ██║ ╚══════╝╚═╝ ╚═╝╚═════╝ ╚══════╝╚═╝ ╚═╝ v0.1.0 lightweight headless browser for AI agents url <url scrape a page to markdown search <query web search crawl <url crawl a whole website map <url discover all URLs on a site interact <url control a browser with natural language extract <url pull structured data with an LLM batch <urls.txt scrape many URLs concurrently ─── saving results ─────────────────────────────────────────── one result url example.com -o page.md everything output ./research/ then all results auto-save last result save page.md after any command ember › url andausman.com ember › save page.md ember › output ./research/ auto-save everything from here ember/research › search "python asyncio" -n 10 ember/research › crawl docs.example.com ember/research › output clear stop auto-saving ember › quit Every command works standalone too: ember url https://example.com scrape a page ember search "AI agents python" -n 10 web search ember crawl https://docs.example.com --max-pages 20 crawl a site ember map https://example.com discover all URLs ember interact https://amazon.com \ --prompt "find a mechanical keyboard under $100" ember extract https://example.com/pricing \ --prompt "list all plans and prices as JSON" All commands accept -o to save that run: ember url https://example.com -o page.md ember search "python" -o results.json ember crawl https://docs.example.com -o ./pages/ one .md per page ember map https://example.com -o urls.txt ember extract https://example.com -o data.json Set a default save directory so you never need -o : ember config --save-dir ./research/ persists across sessions ember config show current settings ember config --save-dir "" clear it Or use an environment variable for the current shell: EMBER SAVE DIR=./out ember url https://example.com In a session, the three ways to save: ember › url example.com -o page.md save just this run ember › save page.md save the last result ember › output ./research/ auto-save all results from now on urls.txt — one URL per line, = comment ember batch urls.txt 5 concurrent by default ember batch urls.txt -c 20 -o ./pages/ 20 parallel, save to dir python from emb.scrape import scrape url, scrape markdown from emb.search import search from emb.crawl import crawl from emb.map import map url Scrape a page → ScrapeResult result = scrape url "https://example.com" print result.markdown full page content as markdown print result.title page title print result.success True / False Just the markdown text md = scrape markdown "https://example.com" Crawl a site result = crawl "https://docs.example.com", max pages=20, max depth=3 for page in result.pages: print page.url, len page.markdown Discover URLs result = map url "https://example.com", max links=100 print result.links list str Search the web results = search "python asyncio tutorial", limit=5 for r in results: print r.title, r.url Browser interaction with natural language from emb.interact import interact result = interact "https://example.com", prompt="click the login button" print result.content what the agent did / saw LLM-powered structured extraction from emb.agent import extract data = extract "https://example.com/pricing", prompt="list all plans and prices" print data dict python import asyncio from emb.scrape import scrape url async async def main : results = await asyncio.gather scrape url async "https://example.com" , scrape url async "https://httpbin.org/get" , for r in results: print r.url, r.success asyncio.run main ember serve http://127.0.0.1:51251 ember serve --port 8080 custom port EMBER API KEY=your-secret ember serve require auth curl -X POST http://localhost:51251/scrape \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -H "X-API-Key: your-secret" \ -d '{"url": "https://example.com"}' curl -X POST http://localhost:51251/search \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"query": "AI agents", "limit": 5}' curl -X POST http://localhost:51251/crawl \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"url": "https://docs.example.com", "max pages": 10}' Endpoints: /scrape /search /crawl /map /interact /extract /agent /health Add to your Hermes config, OpenClaw config, Mercury config, or any MCP-compatible host: { "mcpServers": { "ember": { "command": "ember", "args": "mcp" } } } Works with Hermes, OpenClaw, Mercury, and any MCP-compatible host. Available tools: scrape , search web , crawl site , map site , batch scrape , interact page , extract data . Once connected, your agent can use ember tools directly in conversation: User: Summarise the latest posts on Hacker News Agent: calls scrape "https://news.ycombinator.com" → returns full page markdown with titles, scores, links Agent: Here are today's top stories on Hacker News: ... User: Find 5 articles about AI agents and scrape each one Agent: calls search web "AI agents 2025", limit=5 → returns list of {title, url, description} Agent: calls batch scrape "url1", "url2", ... → returns markdown for each page Agent: Here's a summary across all 5 articles: ... Not every page needs a browser. ember knows the difference. Tier 1 — trafilatura handles ~89% of the web: blogs, news, documentation, docs sites, GitHub. Pure HTTP, no browser process, no memory overhead. Tier 2 — Lightpanda handles JavaScript-heavy pages, SPAs, and interactive content. It's a real browser engine written in Zig, built for machines rather than humans — 20 MB total. ember downloads and caches it automatically on first use, and only falls back to it when tier 1 produces thin content. Most requests never reach the browser. | State | RAM | |---|---| | Idle | ~17 MB | | Scraping a static page | ~20 MB | | Running the browser | ~140 MB | Firecrawl needs 4–8 GB in Docker. Crawl4AI imports at 171 MB before scraping anything. ember fits where your agent already runs. | Variable | Default | Description | |---|---|---| EMBER SAVE DIR | none | Default directory for saved results. Overrides ember config --save-dir for the current shell. | EMBER API KEY | none | Enables API key auth on the REST server X-API-Key header . | EMBER PORT | 51251 | Default port for ember serve . Overridden by --port flag. | EMBER INTERACT PROVIDER | openai | LLM provider for interact openai , anthropic , ollama , etc. . | EMBER LLM API KEY | none | API key for LLM-powered extraction. | EMBER LLM BASE URL | https://api.openai.com/v1 | LLM API endpoint for extraction. | EMBER LLM MODEL | gpt-4o-mini | Model used by extract . | EMBER LIGHTPANDA PATH | auto | Path to a custom Lightpanda binary. Skips auto-download if set. | MIT /andalabx/ember/blob/main/LICENSE — open source forever.