# Rodney by Simon Willison

8 Hacker News commenters recommended Rodney by Simon Willison and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free command-line tool that lets coding agents drive and check a browser; people like its built-in help. Critics say it may be unnecessary.

## Why people recommend it

- Help text explains the tool fully (2 comments): "The --help output tells it everything it needs to use the tool" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47003200)) "The help text effectively doubles as a skill." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46964748))

## What people warn about

- AI could build similar alternatives (2 comments): "I like the idea of Rodney, but I wonder if you might actually have better results" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46967273)) "Sounds like both of these tools could be one shot by either Claude or Codex." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46964709))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Playwright](https://hackerapproved.com/p/playwright.md): 137 recommend
- [Playwright CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/playwright-cli.md): 19 recommend
- [Selenium](https://hackerapproved.com/p/selenium.md): 15 recommend
- [Puppeteer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/puppeteer.md): 14 recommend
- [Stagehand](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stagehand.md): 13 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Rodney by Simon Willison", https://hackerapproved.com/p/rodney/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).