Comparison
Argus and Octo Browser, side by side
A sourced, dated comparison of Argus and Octo Browser: the cloud API and its rate limits, .octo profile files, headless Docker, team permissions and pricing — each row read from Octo's own documentation.
Comparison pages are usually written by whoever wants to win them, so here is how this one is built. Every Octo Browser row below was read from their own site and documentation on 17 August 2026, and each cell links to the page it came from. Anything we could not find on their site is left out rather than guessed at — a blank row here means we did not verify it, never that the feature is missing. And the rows Argus loses are in the table with the rest of them.
Before the table
Which of these is for you
Octo Browser is the most deployable product in this comparison. Windows, Intel and Apple Silicon macOS and Linux all have builds, with separate iOS and Android apps beyond them; a cloud API at app.octobrowser.net carries published per-plan rate limits; the docs give a recipe for running the browser headless in Docker or Kubernetes on your own servers; a profile exports to a .octo file carrying its fingerprint, cookies and proxy to another user; and team settings are per-permission with folder scoping and an action log.
Argus is for people who want the work built rather than coded — a 24-step automation builder, a calendar that orders several of them, typed tables to collect what they gather, and an assistant on model keys you bring — and who are content for all of it to run on their own machine. Argus has a free plan and Octo does not; Octo has a cloud API and Argus does not.
The sourced table
Argus and Octo Browser, row by row
Cells are sentences rather than ticks. Two ticks in a captcha row would hide the thing that decides it — whether every solve costs money — and the same is true of half the rows below.
| Capability | Argus | Octo Browser |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes — 5 profiles, 2 automations, no card | No free plan on the pricing page; new users of the iOS and Android apps are offered 100 profiles freeSource |
| Cheapest paid plan | $89 / 30 days for 100 profiles | €10 / month for Lite (3 profiles); then €29 for 30, €79 for 200, €169 for 600 with 6 team members, €329 for 100,000Source |
| Desktop builds | macOS on Apple Silicon and Windows 10/11 x64. No Linux, no Intel Mac, no mobile | Windows (x64), macOS on M series and on Intel, and Linux (x64). Separate iOS and Android apps exist beyond the desktop downloadsSource |
| Local API | Yes — 89 endpoints on http://127.0.0.1:39219, with scoped keys and an approve-or-deny prompt for every new client | A local client API on localhost:58888 with no rate limit. The cloud API is limited by plan: 50 requests a minute on Base, 100 on Team, 200 on Advanced expandable to 1,000Source |
| Hosted API | No. The API is loopback-only, on your own machine — there is no endpoint we host | Yes — a cloud automation API at app.octobrowser.net/api/v2/automationSource |
| Team seats | Up to 10 seats on Team and 25 on Enterprise, sharing one pool. No per-resource permission model yet | Per-permission team settings rather than named roles — create, edit, delete, transfer and clone profiles, proxy rights, folder-level access — with an Action Log. 6 members on Team, unlimited on AdvancedSource |
| Moving profiles in and out | CSV import and export of profile rows, plus cookie files matched to profiles by name. There is no single-file export carrying a profile's fingerprint and cookies together | A profile exports to a .octo file carrying its fingerprint, cookies and proxy, importable once, at a cost of 0.5 tokens; profiles also transfer to another account in the same workspaceSource |
| Crypto payment | Yes — card through Revolut or crypto through OxaPay | Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay, plus Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Tether, TRON, USD Coin, Bitcoin Cash and TONSource |
Every Octo Browser row above was read from Octo Browser's own documentation on 17 August 2026; the Argus rows come from our own reference. These products change often, and we would rather correct this page than defend it — tell us if something here is out of date. Anything we could not verify on their site is left out of the table rather than guessed at.
What actually differs
A cloud API, or no cloud at all
Octo's automation API lives on their servers at app.octobrowser.net, with rate limits published per plan — 50 requests a minute on Base, 100 on Team, 200 on Advanced and expandable from there — plus a local client API on port 58888 that has no limit at all, and a documented Dockerfile and Kubernetes deployment for running the browser headless on hardware you rent. That is a real operational capability and Argus has nothing like it. Argus's API is loopback-only, on your machine, with no hosted endpoint and no server-side runner; a schedule entry fires only while the launcher is open, and a slot it was closed for is marked missed rather than caught up. The upside is that no session of yours ever runs on infrastructure we control. The downside is exactly what it sounds like.
What actually differs
.octo files, and what Argus has instead
Octo exports a profile to a .octo file carrying its fingerprint, cookies and proxy, importable once, and can transfer profiles to another account in the same workspace. Argus has no such format: CSV import and export cover a profile's configuration — name, proxy, folder, tags, start page, operating system, user agent, language and timezone — and cookie files in a folder can be matched to profiles by name, but nothing carries an identity and a session together in one file. If handing a finished, logged-in profile to somebody else is part of the job, Octo does it and Argus does not, and the switching guide on this site says so rather than working around it.
What actually differs
Pricing is shaped differently at both ends
Octo starts at €10 a month for three profiles and has no free desktop plan; Argus starts free with five, then jumps to $89. At the middle of the ladder the arithmetic reverses — Octo's €79 Base tier carries 200 profiles against Argus's $89 for 100 — so if the number of profiles per unit of money is the thing you are optimising, Octo is the cheaper product at that rung and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. What the Argus price also carries is the automation builder, the calendar, datasets and the assistant, on every tier including the free one, with the AI running on your own provider keys rather than anything we resell.
The honest part
Where Argus is the wrong answer
Four things about Argus that a table makes it easy to skim past. If any of them is load-bearing for you, buy the other one — a refund and a bad review cost us more than the sale was worth.
- The desktop builds are macOS on Apple Silicon and Windows 10/11 on x64. There is no Linux build, no Intel Mac build and no mobile app.
- Everything runs on your machine. There is no hosted API and no cloud runner, so nothing happens while the app is closed — a schedule entry whose slot passed with the launcher shut is marked missed and skipped, never caught up.
- The cheapest paid plan is $89 for 30 days. Several products in this category start lower.
- Teams share one pool with no per-resource permissions and no activity log yet — both are named as missing on the teamwork page rather than implied.
The rest of what Argus does not do yet is written down on the teamwork page and in what an anti-detect browser cannot do.
Moving over
What actually transfers, and what does not
Profiles do not move between these tools the way files move between folders. There is no shared format, and the part that matters most — a profile's cookies and its fingerprint together — is the part that travels worst. What genuinely carries over, what has to be rebuilt, and the order to do it in are on the switching page, written without pretending an importer exists that does not.
Ready to run profiles at scale?
Download Argus for Mac or Windows and start free with 5 profiles.