Kernel
- Free allowance
- Free: USD 0 a month plus usage, USD 5 of free credits a month, 5 concurrent browsers, unmarked mode, 3 managed auth connections
- Verdict
- caveatusable, with a named limit or an unprobed read path
- Cost
- free tierpaid plans from USD 30/month
- Identity
- emailno card, no phone
- Binding limit
- request-raterequests per unit of time
- Evidence
- documented2 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-11-22checked 2026-10-22 (live); stale on 2026-11-22
| Free tier | free: USD 0 a month plus usage, USD 5 of free credits a month, 5 concurrent browsers, unmarked mode, 3 managed auth connections unit mixed; metered on wall-clock; 'You can sign up without a credit card' is stated in the page FAQ |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits |
hobbyist is USD 30 a month with USD 10 of credit and unlimited proxy use |
| Binding | request-rate USD 5 of monthly credit at a GB-second rate is spent by page weight, so the credit is the allowance and page size decides how fast |
| Identity | email 'You can sign up without a credit card and get started right away', quoted |
| Egress | usage is USD 0.0000166667 per GB-second with no charge for idle time or proxies free allowance: within USD 5 of credit |
| Retention | session replays are kept 1 day on free, 7 days on hobbyist and 30 days on start-up (1 days) |
| Interface | rest, cli REST API and SDKs; a browser session with live view |
| Tooling | Kernel SDK and REST; Playwright over CDP; live view of a session |
| Composes with | GB-second billing with no idle charge makes a held session cheap when it is doing nothing |
| Reliability | no reliability event recorded |
| Notes | USD 5 a month recurring, no card, and unmarked mode included on the free plan. The GB-second unit makes the cost depend on page weight rather than time, which is unusual in this class. |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence 2
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-22 | www.kernel.sh/pricing | free: USD 5 of credits a month, 5 concurrent browsers, session replays 1 day, 3 managed auth connections |
| 2026-10-22 | www.kernel.sh/pricing | usage is USD 0.0000166667 per GB-second with no charges for idle time or proxies |
More fields 13
| shape | {"vcpu": null,"ram_gib": null,"disk_gib": null,"gpu_class": null,"gpu_count": null} |
|---|---|
| billing model | wall-clock |
| granularity | {"min_billed_s": 1,"rounding_s": 1} |
| session cap | {"wall_clock_min": null,"idle_reap_s": null,"restart_required": false,"note": "no idle charge"} |
| keep rate | {"value": 0.0,"basis": "no charges for idle time","source": "https://www.kernel.sh/pricing"} |
| persistent storage | {"included_gib": null,"price_gib_month": null,"durability": "replays kept 1 day","survives_stop": null,"survives_destroy": false,"max_retention": "1 day"} |
| network out | {"allow_outbound": true,"allow_inbound_listen": false,"ports": "CDP","static_ip": null,"ipv6": null,"per_session_bytes": null} |
| free tier kind | recurring-credit |
| m10h usd | 30.0 |
| m24h usd | 30.0 |
| price note | Hobbyist at USD 30 a month includes USD 10 of credit and unlimited proxy; usage is USD 0.0000166667 per GB-second, so a 300-hour run depends on page weight and not on time. |
| price basis | 300 and 730 BROWSER HOURS, not a 2 vCPU shape. A browser host sells minutes of a remote browser, so these rows are not comparable with a sandbox row. |
| burst x | 1.0 |
Unknown values 2
- per object cap stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
- reliability note: nothing of this kind was observed