Rodney by Simon Willison
Shares rank 8 of 12 browser automation tools by recommenders
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.
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.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Help text explains the tool fully
“The --help output tells it everything it needs to use the tool”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “I asked Claude Code to remove jQuery. It failed miserably” “The help text effectively doubles as a skill.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
AI could build similar alternatives
“I like the idea of Rodney, but I wonder if you might actually have better results”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built” “Sounds like both of these tools could be one shot by either Claude or Codex.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built”
Other browser automation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other browser automation tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playwright | 137 | 28 | 83% | 12 | 3 mo3 owners | Approved |
| Playwright CLI | 19 | 1 | 95% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Selenium | 15 | 5 | 75% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Puppeteer | 14 | 16 | 47% | 10 | — | — |
| Rodney by Simon WillisonThis page | 8 | 2 | 80% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
12 of the 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it's a bit of a nasty hack that involves leaving files with PIDs lying around”
“Rodney CLI has been a game changer for local development”
“Simon's tools are really great.”
“290 stars and 4 contributors who aren't me or Claude”
“The --help output tells it everything it needs to use the tool”
“I like the idea of Rodney, but I wonder if you might actually have better results”
“why this? If your goal isn't to make the cli human-friendly”
“It may well turn out that Rodney is unnecessary”
“Really cool tools, but I think one thing that would help in the introduction”
“I find `go install github.com/simonw/rodney@latest` equally easy.”
“The help text effectively doubles as a skill.”
“Sounds like both of these tools could be one shot by either Claude or Codex.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.