Tabhand vs Kernel: every site you’re signed in to, not three
Kernel’s free plan keeps your agent signed in to three websites, and bills its cloud browsers by the second. Tabhand works with every site you’re signed in to in Chrome, all day, for nothing.
npx tabhand setupFree and open source. No account, no plan to outgrow. Works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and 16 more.
Three sites, then a plan
Kernel signs your agent in to sites with managed auth, and keeps those sign-ins fresh. On the free plan, that covers 3 sites, with 3 vaults for passwords. A fourth site means the Hobbyist plan, at $30 a month.
Three goes fast. In one afternoon a coding agent might need GitHub, your email, a cloud console, an analytics dashboard and the staging site. That’s five.
Tabhand has no list of sites and no limit. If you’re signed in to it in Chrome, your agent is too.
$0, against $14 to $200 a month
Kernel bills by the second while a browser is busy. One with a screen, which live view and replays need, costs about 48 cents an hour. Two busy hours a day, on 20 working days, is 40 hours, or about $19.20 of usage:
| Kernel plan | Per month | Usage included | Your 40 hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Developer | Free | $5 | $14.20, with 3 sites at most |
| Hobbyist | $30 | $10 | $39.20 |
| Start-Up | $200 | $50 | $200 |
On Tabhand, those 40 hours cost $0, and so does every hour after them.
Signed in the way you already are
With Kernel, each sign-in is something to set up: a managed-auth connection through a page Kernel hosts, a vault for the password, or a profile you sign in to by hand in a live session. When a site signs you out and Kernel can’t sign back in by itself, you do it again.
With Tabhand, there’s nothing to set up. Your agent uses the sessions you already have, including two-factor sites and your company’s single sign-on.
On your Mac, not in a data center
Kernel’s browsers run in its cloud, so your agent’s pages and sign-ins live there too. Tabhand runs on your computer and sends nothing anywhere, and its code is on GitHub for anyone to check.
Side by side
| Tabhand | Kernel | |
|---|---|---|
| Every site you’re signed in to | ✓ | 3 on the free plan |
| Free, with no usage bill | ✓ | Billed by the second |
| Nothing to set up per site | ✓ | — |
| Pages stay on your computer | ✓ | — |
| Stealth mode and CAPTCHA solving | — | ✓ |
| Agents that run on servers | — | ✓ |
Running agents on servers?
That’s where Kernel earns its price: isolated browsers in the cloud, stealth mode with a CAPTCHA solver, and sign-ins it manages for your users. For your own coding agents, on your own Mac, in your own accounts, Tabhand does the job for free.
Questions
Can Kernel use the Chrome on my computer? Its browsers run in Kernel’s cloud, and its docs don’t describe a way to drive your local Chrome.
Is there a catch to Tabhand being free? No. It’s open source under the MIT license, with no account and no paid tier.
Does it work with Claude Code? Yes, on any plan or API key. The Claude Code guide takes two minutes.
Give your agent your Chrome
npx tabhand setupFacts about Kernel checked on October 20, 2026 against its pricing, limits, profiles and managed auth docs. If something here is out of date, tell us.